Scalable printed electronics: an organic decoder addressing ferroelectric non-volatile memory.

Scalable circuits of organic logic and memory are realized using all-additive printing processes. A 3-bit organic complementary decoder is fabricated and used to read and write non-volatile, rewritable ferroelectric memory. The decoder-memory array is patterned by inkjet and gravure printing on flexible plastics. Simulation models for the organic transistors are developed, enabling circuit designs tolerant of the variations in printed devices. We explain the key design rules in fabrication of complex printed circuits and elucidate the performance requirements of materials and devices for reliable organic digital logic.

Tuning the threshold voltage in electrolyte-gated organic field-effect transistors.

Low-voltage organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) promise for low power consumption logic circuits. To enhance the efficiency of the logic circuits, the control of the threshold voltage of the transistors are based on is crucial. We report the systematic control of the threshold voltage of electrolyte-gated OFETs by using various gate metals. The influence of the work function of the metal is investigated in metal-electrolyte-organic semiconductor diodes and electrolyte-gated OFETs. A good correlation is found between the flat-band potential and the threshold voltage. The possibility to tune the threshold voltage over half the potential range applied and to obtain depletion-like (positive threshold voltage) and enhancement (negative threshold voltage) transistors is of great interest when integrating these transistors in logic circuits. The combination of a depletion-like and enhancement transistor leads to a clear improvement of the noise margins in depleted-load unipolar inverters.

Controlling the dimensionality of charge transport in organic thin-film transistors.

Electrolyte-gated organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) can offer a feasible platform for future flexible, large-area and low-cost electronic applications. These transistors can be divided into two groups on the basis of their operation mechanism: (i) field-effect transistors that switch fast but carry much less current than (ii) the electrochemical transistors which, on the contrary, switch slowly. An attractive approach would be to combine the benefits of the field-effect and the electrochemical transistors into one transistor that would both switch fast and carry high current densities. Here we report the development of a polyelectrolyte-gated OTFT based on conjugated polyelectrolytes, and we demonstrate that the OTFTs can be controllably operated either in the field-effect or the electrochemical regime. Moreover, we show that the extent of electrochemical doping can be restricted to a few monolayers of the conjugated polyelectrolyte film, which allows both high current densities and fast switching speeds at the same time. We propose an operation mechanism based on self-doping of the conjugated polyelectrolyte backbone by its ionic side groups.