Synergistic Effects of Solvent Vapor Assisted Spin-coating and Thermal Annealing on Enhancing the Carrier Mobility of Poly(3-hexylthiophene) Field-effect Transistors

Poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) thin films, obtained by normal spin-coating and solvent vapor assisted spin-coating (SVASP) before and after thermal annealing (TA), and the corresponding devices were prepared to unravel the microstructure-property relationship, which is of great importance for the development of organic electronics. When SVASP-TA films were used as the active layers of the organic field-effect transistors, a hole mobility up to 0.38 cm(2)center dot V-1 center dot s(-1) was achieved. This mobility was one of the highest values and one order of magnitude higher than that of the normal spin-coating films based transistors. The relationship between the microstructure and the device performance was fully investigated by UV-Vis absorption spectra, grazing incident X-ray diffraction (GIXD), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The impressive mobility was attributed to the high crystallinity and ordered molecule packing, which stem from the synergistic effects of SVASP and thermal annealing.

Automated summary

By using SVASP films after thermal annealing as the active layers for organic field-effect transistors, a hole mobility up to 0.38 cm(2)center dot V-1 center dot s(-1) was achieved, which was significantly higher compared to devices based on normal spin-coating films. The high mobility was attributed to the synergistic effects of SVASP and thermal annealing, resulting in high crystallinity and ordered molecule packing.