Direct ink-jet printing of Ag-Cu nanoparticle and Ag-precursor based electrodes for OFET applications

The field of organic electronics has seen tremendous progress over the last years and all-solution-based processes are believed to be one of the key routes to ultra low-cost roll-to-roll device and circuit fabrication. In this regard a variety of functional materials has been successfully designed for inkjet printing. While orthogonal-solvent approaches have frequently been used to tackle the solubility issue in multilayer solution processing, the focus of this work lies on printed metal electrodes for organic field-effect transistors (OFET) and their curing concepts. Two metallic inkjet-printable materials are studied: i) a silver-copper nanoparticle based dispersion and ii) a soluble organic silver-precursor. Photoelectron spectroscopy reveals largely metallic properties of the cured materials, which are compared with respect to OFET performance and process-related issues. Contact resistance of the prepared metal electrodes is significantly larger than that of evaporated top-contact gold electrodes. As direct patterning via inkjet printing limits the reliably achievable channel length to values well above 10 pm, the influence of contact resistance is rather small, however, and overall device performance is comparable.