Inch-Scale Grain Boundary Free Organic Crystals Developed by Nucleation Seed-Controlled Shearing Method

Zhiwen Zhou, Zhichao Zhang, Qisheng Wu, Xudong Ji, Jinlan Wang, Xiaocheng Zeng, Shien Ping Feng, Paddy Kwok Leung Chan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

55 Scopus citations

Abstract

Crystals of organic semiconductors are excellent candidates for flexible and array-based electronics. Large-scale synthesis of organic crystals in a controllable way while maintaining homogeneous single-crystal property has been a great challenge. The existence of grain boundaries and small crystal domains, however, restrict the device performance and limit the access to commercially viable organic electronics in the industry. Herein, we report the inch-scale synthesis of highly oriented 2,7-dioctyl[1]benzothieno[3,2-b][1]benzothiophene (C 8 -BTBT) organic single crystal by nucleation seed-controlled shearing method. The organic field-effect transistors developed from such single crystal have excellent carrier mobility as high as 14.9 cm 2 V -1 s -1 and uniformity (standard deviation is 1.3 cm 2 V -1 s -1 ) of 225 devices. We also found that the rotation of the principal axis in the crystal is governed by the orientations of seeds and the possible mechanism behind this phenomenon is proposed based on the density functional theory calculations. We anticipate that this proposed approach will have great potential to be developed as a platform for the growth of organic crystals with high crystallinity on a large scale.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)35395-35403
Number of pages9
JournalACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
Volume10
Issue number41
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 17 2018

Keywords

  • grain boundary-free
  • nucleation
  • organic field-effect transistor
  • single crystal
  • solution shearing

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science

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