Improved organic electrochemical transistor stability using solvent degassing and chemical doping

Vianna N. Le; Kyle N. Baustert; Megan R. Brown; Joel H. Bombile; Lucas Q. Flagg; Karl Thorley; Christina J. Kousseff; Olga Solomeshch; Iain McCulloch; Nir Tessler; Chad Risko; Kenneth R. Graham; Alexandra F. Paterson

doi:10.1038/s41928-024-01297-8

Improved organic electrochemical transistor stability using solvent degassing and chemical doping

Vianna N. Le, Kyle N. Baustert, Megan R. Brown, Joel H. Bombile, Lucas Q. Flagg, Karl Thorley, Christina J. Kousseff, Olga Solomeshch, Iain McCulloch, Nir Tessler, Chad Risko, Kenneth R. Graham, Alexandra F. Paterson

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors (OMIECs), which can be used to build organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs), are of potential use in flexible, large-area and bioelectronic systems. Although hole-transporting p-type OMIECs are susceptible to oxidation, and oxygen leads to OECT instability, it is unclear whether oxygen also behaves as an uncontrolled p-dopant. We show that oxygen dissolved in a solvent can act as a p-dopant in OMIECs and OECTs by filling traps to enable effective electrochemical doping. To address the fact that the presence of oxygen simultaneously jeopardizes OECT stability, we develop a two-step strategy in which we first degas the solvent, and then dope the OMIEC in a controlled manner using a chemical dopant. Our approach improves the stability of both p-type and n-type OECTs, while increasing the on–off ratio, tuning the threshold voltage and enhancing the transconductance, charge carrier mobility, and the µC* product—that is, the product of mobility and the volumetric capacitance.

Original language	English
Article number	1575
Pages (from-to)	116-126
Number of pages	11
Journal	Nature Electronics
Volume	8
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-024-01297-8
State	Published - Feb 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2025.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (1849213 to V.N.L., K.T. and A.F.P.; MR-1905734 to K.N.B., M.R.B., J.H.B., C.R. and K.R.G.; DMR-2349830 to V.N.L., M.R.B., J.H.B., C.R., K.R.G. and A.F.P). Computing resources on the Lipscomb High Performance Computing Cluster were provided by the University of Kentucky Center for Computational Sciences and Information Technology Services Research Computing. (M.R.B., J.H.B. and C.R.). This work was also supported by the DOE Office of Science (DE-SC0012704 to L.Q.F.), the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology Israel (M-ERANET PHANTASTIC Call 2021 to O.S. and N.T.), and the Israel Ministry of Science, the Center for Absorption in Science of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, and the Committee for Planning and Budgeting of the Council for Higher Education through the KAMEA Program (O.S.). The authors thank T. J. Balk and A. Stubbers for their earlier supporting work using small-angle X-ray scattering.

Funders	Funder number
National Council for Higher Education
Ministry of Aliyah and Integration
Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation
Ministry of Science and Technology, Israel
Kentucky Transportation Center, University of Kentucky
U.S. Department of Energy Chinese Academy of Sciences Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Project Oak Ridge National Laboratory Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment National Science Foundation National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center National Natural Science Foundation of China	1849213, DMR-2349830, MR-1905734
U.S. Department of Energy Chinese Academy of Sciences Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Project Oak Ridge National Laboratory Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment National Science Foundation National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center National Natural Science Foundation of China
National Science Foundation Office of International Science and Engineering	DE-SC0012704
National Science Foundation Office of International Science and Engineering

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
Instrumentation
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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10.1038/s41928-024-01297-8

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Le, V. N., Baustert, K. N., Brown, M. R., Bombile, J. H., Flagg, L. Q., Thorley, K., Kousseff, C. J., Solomeshch, O., McCulloch, I., Tessler, N., Risko, C., Graham, K. R., & Paterson, A. F. (2025). Improved organic electrochemical transistor stability using solvent degassing and chemical doping. Nature Electronics, 8(2), 116-126. Article 1575. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-024-01297-8

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abstract = "Organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors (OMIECs), which can be used to build organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs), are of potential use in flexible, large-area and bioelectronic systems. Although hole-transporting p-type OMIECs are susceptible to oxidation, and oxygen leads to OECT instability, it is unclear whether oxygen also behaves as an uncontrolled p-dopant. We show that oxygen dissolved in a solvent can act as a p-dopant in OMIECs and OECTs by filling traps to enable effective electrochemical doping. To address the fact that the presence of oxygen simultaneously jeopardizes OECT stability, we develop a two-step strategy in which we first degas the solvent, and then dope the OMIEC in a controlled manner using a chemical dopant. Our approach improves the stability of both p-type and n-type OECTs, while increasing the on–off ratio, tuning the threshold voltage and enhancing the transconductance, charge carrier mobility, and the µC* product—that is, the product of mobility and the volumetric capacitance.",

author = "Le, \{Vianna N.\} and Baustert, \{Kyle N.\} and Brown, \{Megan R.\} and Bombile, \{Joel H.\} and Flagg, \{Lucas Q.\} and Karl Thorley and Kousseff, \{Christina J.\} and Olga Solomeshch and Iain McCulloch and Nir Tessler and Chad Risko and Graham, \{Kenneth R.\} and Paterson, \{Alexandra F.\}",

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Improved organic electrochemical transistor stability using solvent degassing and chemical doping

Abstract

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