Poly(3,3'''-didodecyl quaterthiophene)

Uses

PQT-12 is a solution processable p-type, π-conjugated semiconductor for felxible printed electronics such as high sensitivity chemical sensors based on organic thin film transistors. It can also be used as donor material in organic solar cells.

Researches show that the microstructure of PQT-12 can be controled by the choice of solvent.

Study has shown PQT-12 spin-coated on a donor substrate can be transfered by means of solid phase laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) technique onto Si/SiO₂ receiver substrates to form the active layer without altering its microstructure. This is important for potential large-scale fabrication of organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs). Bottom gated OTFTs obtained by this means demonstrated hole mobility values of (2.6 ± 1.3) × 10-2 cm²/Vs, and lower parasitic resistance for dielectric surface roughness around 1.2 nm and Pt electrodes. Authors attributed the resulted higher performances to i) the well-ordering of PQT-12 surface when a high-boiling-point solvent is used, and ii) the less limitating Pt source/drain electrodes.

A 20 MHz organic nanodiode has been demonstrated imploying PQT-12 as the semiconducting active layer. The obtained self-switching devices (SSDs) are single layered, planar structures that can be easily fabricated in a single step of nanolithography. The SSDs possess substantially lower parasitic capacitance between contacts than conventional organic diodes and organic thin-film transistors, and the study demonstrated that the nano-rectifiers can operate at frequencies well above both 125/134 kHz and 13.56 MHz RFID communication bands.

PQT-12:PEO nanofibers can be well-aligned on the textile composite substrate by electrospinning onto a rotating drum collector. The nanofiber phototransistors fabricated on the PET/PDMS textile composite substrate show highly stable device performance (on-current retention up to 82.3 (±6.7)%) under extreme bending conditions, with a bending radius down to 0.75 mm and repeated tests over 1000 cycles. The maximum photoresponsivity, photocurrent/dark-current ratio, and external quantum efficiency under blue light illumination of the PQT-12:PEO nanofiber phototransistors were 930 mA/W, 2.76, and 246%, respectively. Also, highly flexible 10 × 10 photosensor arrays were fabricated which are able to detect incident photonic signals with high resolution. These PQT-12:PEO based flexible photosensors have high potential for applications as wearable photosensors.