A Universal Platform for Fabricating Organic Electrochemical Devices

TLDR

The device architecture and basic principles apply to all semiconducting polymers, enabling use of thousands of water‑insoluble materials developed for thin‑film electronics in organic bioelectronics. The authors present a general method and guidelines for fabricating both nonaqueous and aqueous OECTs using water‑insoluble hydrophobic semiconducting polymers. The method exploits solvent–water liquid‑liquid interfaces to fabricate OECTs, and the authors extract key device properties such as volumetric capacitance and intrinsic hole mobility. The fabricated OECTs exhibit high transconductance, ON/OFF ratios up to 10^6, improved stability, and the platform also enables low‑powered organic electrochemical artificial synapses.

Abstract

Abstract A general method and accompanying guidelines for fabricating both nonaqueous and aqueous based organic electrochemical devices (OECTs) using water‐insoluble hydrophobic semiconducting polymers are presented. By taking advantage of the interactions of semiconducting polymers in certain organic solvents and the formation of a stable liquid‐liquid interface between such solvents and water, OECTs with high transconductance, ON/OFF ratios of up to 10 6 , and enhancements in stability are successfully fabricated. Additionally, key fundamental properties are extracted of both the device and the active channel materials, including the volumetric capacitance and the intrinsic hole mobility. The device architecture and basic principles presented herein are expected to apply to all semiconducting polymers and enable the use in organic bioelectronics of thousands of water‐insoluble materials that have been developed over the last several decades for traditional thin film electronics. Furthermore, the fabrication of low‐powered organic electrochemical artificial synapses is demonstrated.