Liquid crystals for organic thin-film transistors

Crystalline thin films of organic semiconductors are a good candidate for field effect transistor (FET) materials in printed electronics. However, there are currently two main problems, which are associated with inhomogeneity and poor thermal durability of these films. Here we report that liquid crystalline materials exhibiting a highly ordered liquid crystal phase of smectic E (SmE) can solve both these problems. We design a SmE liquid crystalline material, 2-decyl-7-phenyl-[1]benzothieno[3,2-b][1]benzothiophene (Ph-BTBT-10), for FETs and synthesize it. This material provides uniform and molecularly flat polycrystalline thin films reproducibly when SmE precursor thin films are crystallized, and also exhibits high durability of films up to 200 °C. In addition, the mobility of FETs is dramatically enhanced by about one order of magnitude (over 10 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1)) after thermal annealing at 120 °C in bottom-gate-bottom-contact FETs. We anticipate the use of SmE liquid crystals in solution-processed FETs may help overcome upcoming difficulties with novel technologies for printed electronics.