Self-organizing properties of triethylsilylethynyl-anthradithiophene on monolayer graphene electrodes in solution-processed transistors

Abstract

Graphene has shown great potential as an electrode material for organic electronic devices such as organic field-effect transistors (FETs) because of its high conductivity, thinness, and good compatibility with organic semiconductor materials. To achieve high performance in graphene-based organic FETs, favorable molecular orientation and good crystallinity of organic semiconductors on graphene are desired. This strongly depends on the surface properties of graphene. Here, we investigate the effects of polymer residues that remain on graphene source/drain electrodes after the transfer/patterning processes on the self-organizing properties and field-effect characteristics of the overlying solution-processed triethylsilylethynyl-anthradithiophene (TES-ADT). A solvent-assisted polymer residue removal process was introduced to effectively remove residues or impurities on the graphene surface. Unlike vacuum-deposited small molecules, TES-ADT displayed a standing-up molecular assembly, which facilitates lateral charge transport, on both the residue-removed clean graphene and as-transferred graphene with polymer residues. However, TES-ADT films grown on the cleaned graphene showed a higher crystallinity and larger grain size than those on the as-transferred graphene. The resulting TES-ADT FETs using cleaned graphene source/drain electrodes therefore exhibited a superior device performance compared to devices using as-transferred graphene electrodes, with mobilities as high as 1.38 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹.