Polymer brush as a facile dielectric surface treatment for high-performance, stable, soluble acene-based transistors

We developed a facile dielectric surface modification using "grafting to" polymer brushes for high-performance and stable TES-ADT FETs. Polymer brushes were grafted onto oxide substrates by spin-coating and thermal annealing. TES-ADT FETs fabricated on top of the polymer brush layer showed excellent device performance-a field-effect mobility of 0.84 cm²/(V s) and an on/off current ratio of 1×10⁶-that was superior to that of devices using conventional dielectric surface treatments such as HMDS and ODTS. During solvent annealing of the TES-ADT films, the mobile chains of the polymer brushes appear to profoundly influence the diffusion and crystallization of the TES-ADT molecules, while maximizing the π-π interactions along the in-plane direction. Moreover, the polymer brushes yielded excellent electrical and environmental stability because of the complete surface coverage with minimal pinholes and defects.