Organic electrochemical transistors: fabrication, characterization and comparison with theoretical models

• Grant number: 23/15105-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: January 01, 2024
• End date: December 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Condensed Matter Physics
• Principal Investigator: Florian Steffen Günther
• Grantee: Rafaela Cristina Pereira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Geociências e Ciências Exatas (IGCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Organic electronics is a field of materials science focused on the design, synthesis, characterization, and application of small organic molecules or polymers with electrically conductive properties. Although a large part of the existing commercial application is comparable to devices equivalent to traditional silicon-based electronics (e.g. solar cells), organic conductive materials also enable new types of applications that are not possible to obtain with traditional inorganic semiconductor materials. An example of such a device is the organic electrochemical transistor (OECT), which is based on the property of some organic films to have ionic and electronic conductance. These systems, also called mixed conductors, allow the conversion of ionic flows into electrical signals. Although various advances and performance improvements of OECTs have been reported in the past years. A targeted material design suggested by a profound theory of the working mechanisms of OECTs, is in fact still missing. Therefore, it is necessary to explore and develop new characterization and data processing methods through theoretical modelling of experimental data. Very recently, a drift-diffusion model of OECTs was derived that incorporates experimentally accessible parameters such as the electrolyte concentration, which is not the case for former OECT models. The here proposed project as at validating this new model by performing systematical changes of the device and compare the consequent device responses to that suggested by the model. In addition to these experimental objectives, the project also aims to encompass academic growth and familiarity with scientific work, scientific texts, and presentation at conferences.