Unidirectional coating technology for organic field-effect transistors: materials and methods

Solution-processed organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) are essential for developing organic electronics. The encouraging development in solution-processed OFETs has attracted research interest because of their potential in low-cost devices with performance comparable to polycrystalline-silicon-based transistors. In recent years, unidirectional coating technology, featuring thin-film coating along only one direction and involving specific materials as well as solution-assisted fabrication methods, has attracted intensive interest. Transistors with organic semiconductor layers, which are deposited via unidirectional coating methods, have achieved high performance. In particular, carrier mobility has been greatly enhanced to values much higher than 10 cm2 V−1 s−1. Such significant improvement is mainly attributed to better control in morphology and molecular packing arrangement of organic thin film. In this review, typical materials that are being used in OFETs are discussed, and demonstrations of unidirectional coating methods are surveyed.