Direct Comparison of the Effect of Processing Conditions in Electrolyte-Gated and Bottom-Gated TIPS-Pentacene Transistors

first_pagesettings Open AccessFeature PaperArticle Direct Comparison of the Effect of Processing Conditions in Electrolyte-Gated and Bottom-Gated TIPS-Pentacene Transistors by Nicolò Lago 1,*ORCID,Marco Buonomo 1,Federico Prescimone 2,Stefano Toffanin 2ORCID,Michele Muccini 2 andAndrea Cester 1 1 Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy 2 Institute of Nanostructured Materials (ISMN), National Research Council (CNR), 40129 Bologna, Italy * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Academic Editor: Horng-Long Cheng Electron. Mater. 2022, 3(4), 281-290; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronicmat3040024 (registering DOI) Received: 6 September 2022 / Revised: 21 September 2022 / Accepted: 23 September 2022 / Published: 27 September 2022 (This article belongs to the Special Issue Feature Papers of Electronic Materials (Second Volume)) Download PDF Browse Figures Citation Export Abstract Among the plethora of soluble and easy processable organic semiconductors, 6,13-Bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)pentacene (TIPS-P5) is one of the most promising materials for next-generation flexible electronics. However, based on the information reported in the literature, it is difficult to exploit in field-effect transistors the high-performance characteristics of this material. This article correlates the HMDS functionalization of the silicon substrate with the electrical characteristics of TIPS-P5-based bottom gate organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and electrolyte-gated organic field-effect transistors (EGOFETs) fabricated over the same platform. TIPS-P5 transistors with a double-gate architecture were fabricated by simple drop-casting on Si/SiO2 substrates, and the substrates were either functionalized with hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) or left untreated. The same devices were characterized both as standard bottom-gate transistors and as (top-gate) electrolyte-gated transistors, and the results with and without HMDS treatment were compared. It is shown that the functionalization of the silicon substrate negatively influences EGOFETs performance, while it is beneficial for bottom-gate OFETs. Different device architectures (e.g., bottom-gate vs. top-gate) require specific evaluation of the fabrication protocols starting from the effect of the HMDS functionalization to maximize the electrical characteristics of TIPS-P5-based devices.