Journal of Materials Chemistry Cite this: J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 20852 www.rsc.org/materials View Article Online / Journal Homepage / Table of Contents for this issue C Dynamic Article Links < COMMUNICATION Published on 24 August 2012. Downloaded by CNR Bologna on 21/03/2014 09:03:37. Targeting ordered oligothiophene fibers with enhanced functional properties by interplay of self-assembly and wet lithography† Denis Gentili,*a Francesca Di Maria,b Fabiola Liscio,c Laura Ferlauto,c Francesca Leonardi,a Lucia Maini,d Massimo Gazzano,b Silvia Milita,c Giovanna Barbarellab and Massimiliano Cavallini*a Received 20th June 2012, Accepted 23rd August 2012 DOI: 10.1039/c2jm33998f Reproducible spatial control of a self-assembly process of fiberforming oligothiophenes was achieved by using confinement effects. This strategy allowed the direct integration with a precise control over density, orientation, and size of supramolecular semiconducting fibers in OFET devices, demonstrating that well-aligned fibers exhibit a substantial enhancement of electrical performances. Achieving the full control of supramolecular self-assembly through the noncovalent interaction of p-conjugated organic functional materials in well-defined and ordered superstructures is a key issue for the technological application of supramolecular chemistry. In particular, this is crucial for applications in large areas and flexible electronic devices of organic charge-transport materials since their electronic properties depend on both the chemical structure and the molecular packing/orientation.1–5 Functional supramolecular nanoand microsized fibers6,7 can be used as interconnecting modules in integrated molecular circuits or as active layers in organic devices such as field-effect transistors and solar cells.8–10 In particular, fibers can facilitate charge carrier mobility through long-range molecular orientation with respect to device electrodes.11 Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) based on a single fiber12–14 or bundles of fibers,15,16 with excellent charge mobilities in the former case, have been reported. However, the application of conducting fibers is limited by the difficulty of controlling morphological parameters, such as fiber distribution and density (i.e. number of fibers per unit area), which affect the reproducibility and the a Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati (CNR-ISMN), via P. Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; Fax: +39 051 6398516; Tel: +39 051 6398522 b Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per la Sintesi Organica e la Fotoreattivit a (CNR-ISOF) (MG, GB) and Laboratorio MIST.E-R (FDM), via P. Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy c Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per la Microelettronica e Microsistemi (CNR-IMM), via P. Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy d Dipartimento di Chimica G. Ciamician, Universit a degli Studi di Bologna, via Selmi 2, 40126 Bologna, Italy † Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Experimental procedures, fibers alignment process, optical microscope images, AFM images, and 2DGIXD and single crystal data. CCDC 876823. For ESI and crystallographic data in CIF or other electronic format see DOI: 10.1039/c2jm33998f 20852 | J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 20852–20856 performance of devices. Alignment of fibers, also used in OFET devices, was successfully obtained by several techniques, such as dipcoating,17 filtration-and-transfer,18 by electric19,20 and magnetic fields,21,22 or using molecular gelators.23,24 Although very efficient, these approaches suffer from the lack of precise control over size, placement (preventing the overlap), and density of the fibers that, together with an appropriate molecular packing25 and a proper fiber alignment, should ensure reproducible properties as required for device applications. Therefore, a technology able to directly integrate organic semiconducting fibers with control over size, orientation, position and density on devices is highly desirable. Recently, wet lithographic methods have been used to fabricate OFETs based on organic semiconducting nanostripes with improved charge transport properties.26,27 Although these methods have permitted the control of stripes distribution and the enhancement of crystalline structures, they have never been used with supramolecular fibers. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that, by combining the spontaneous self-assembly of fiber-forming oligothiophenes with easy-to-handle and low cost wet lithographic techniques,28 transistors based on bundles of semiconducting well-aligned supramolecular fibers can be achieved, avoiding mechanical manipulations and postfabrication processes for their integration into devices. We have taken advantage of the high plasticity of oligothiophene compounds and their self-organization capability in a confined system.29 In addition, we show that moving from random- to well-aligned fibers there is an impressive enhancement of electrical performances, which can reach up to 3 orders of magnitude for charge carrier mobility. We have chosen sulphur over-rich thiophene octamers 1–3 (Fig. 1a), recently reported by Di Maria et al.,30 which self-assemble into supramolecular nano- and micrometer sized, thermodynamically very stable, crystalline 1–3 fibers, respectively, when exposed to vapor of a non-solvent. These fibers, whose morphologies are univocally determined by the molecular structure and therefore can be reproducibly generated on various types of surfaces, exhibit high crystallinity, strong fluorescence, and semiconducting properties. Non-solvent vapor-induced crystallization in combination with lithographically controlled wetting (LCW),31 which has already proven to be a powerful tool for manipulations of soluble organic26,27,32 and metal–organic compounds,33–35 has been used herein to control the self-assembly process of compounds 1–3 (Fig. 1b). In an airtight container saturated with non-solvent vapor, an elastomeric stamp, consisting of parallel lines (pitch ¼ 1.6 mm, full This journal is ª The Royal Society of Chemistry 2012 Published on 24 August 2012. Downloaded by CNR Bologna on 21/03/2014 09:03:37. View Article Online Fig. 1 (a) Molecular structures of oligothiophenes 1–3. (b) Schematic representation of non-solvent vapor-induced crystallization in combination with lithographically controlled wetting (LCW). width at half-maximum FWHM ¼ 1 mm, and 220 nm deep), was placed in contact with a 1–3 solution film spread on a SiO2/Si substrate with or without gold electrodes (see ESI†). As shown in detail in Fig. 1b, there is a confinement effect due to the capillary forces that pin the solution under stamp protrusions. At the same time, the self-assembly process induced by non-solvent vapor takes place and leads to the formation of a well-oriented array of fibers imposed by the motif of the stamp protrusions. The method whose detailed protocol is described in ref. 28a is highly reproducible with a success rate higher than 90% (i.e. considering as a successful case a sample containing aligned fibers in areas larger than 2 2 mm2). On the other hand, without using the elastomeric stamp, randomly distributed crystalline fibers of 1–3 were formed on the surface. Fibers were characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM), optical microscopy, and by grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD). We have fabricated at least 12 different samples for each compound. Optical images (Fig. 2a and b and S1†) show the successful fabrication of well-aligned 1–3 fibers and reveal that the stamp motif has imposed the fibers density and orientation, as shown by the fact that where the stamp ends the fibers exhibit a pronounced sagging (Fig. 2a and b). All aligned fibers showed birefringence that extinguishes upon a 45 rotation with respect to the polarizers (Fig. 2a, inset), indicating that the fibers have a pronounced crystalline directional order. Optical images further confirm that our technique allows the fabrication of OFETs in a bottom contact configuration with 1–3 fibers aligned perpendicularly to the gold electrodes (Fig. 2c, S2 and S3†). On the other hand, without stamp, fibers result randomly distributed within entangled bundles (Fig. 2d, S4 and S5†). This journal is ª The Royal Society of Chemistry 2012 Fig. 2 Optical micrographs collected under (a) cross-polarized light oriented along the axes of the image, inset: after rotation of 45 (scale bar ¼ 100 mm), and (b) unpolarized light (scale bar ¼ 50 mm) of aligned 1 fibers on a SiO2/Si surface. Optical micrographs collected under (c) crosspolarized light oriented along the axes of the image of aligned fibers (scale bar ¼ 50 mm), inset: unpolarized light (scale bar ¼ 10 mm), and (d) randomly distributed (scale bar ¼ 50 mm) 1 fibers on an interdigitated gold electrode/SiO2 surface. Fig. 3 Typical AFM topography (scale bar ¼ 20 mm, z scale 0–250 nm), and corresponding profiles of (a and b) aligned and (c and d) randomly distributed fibers on an interdigitated electrode/SiO2 surface (scale bar ¼ 20 mm, z scales (a) 0–250 nm, (b) 0–500 nm). The inset in (a) shows the AFM topography image of a PDMS stamp (scale bar ¼ 10 mm, z scale 0– 250 nm). Here we have shown fibers of 1 (2 and 3 exhibit a similar morphology). J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 20852–20856 | 20853 Published on 24 August 2012. Downloaded by CNR Bologna on 21/03/2014 09:03:37. View Article Online AFM analysis (Fig. 3a–d, S6 and S7†) reveals that the role of the stamp (Fig. 3a, inset) is not limited to imposing the fibers orientation and density, but the confinement effect of the stamp also controls the size of the fibers. Independent of the oligothiophene used, narrow distributions of the FWHM (1.1 0.2 mm) and heights (159 20 nm) were found for aligned fibers. Noteworthy, AFM profiles (Fig. 3b) indicate that the discontinuous nature of the substrate used for OFET fabrication (150 nm high interdigitated gold electrodes preformed on a thermal SiO2 surface) does not affect the morphology of the fibers whose lengths reach up to hundreds of mm, achieving a good interconnection between the source and drain electrodes. Deeper insight into the molecular organization of 1–3 fibers was obtained by 2D-GIXD analysis. All samples with randomly distributed fibers showed diffraction images that contain a large number of reflections, which are invariant upon rotation of the sample around its normal (Fig. S8†). These results display the crystalline nature of the fibers and the isotropic distribution of the crystals that reflects the random distribution of the fibers. In contrast, 2D-GIXD analysis of aligned 1–3 fibers reveals different reflections when the X-ray beam is parallel or perpendicular to their direction (Fig. 4a and b, S9 and S10†). This strong anisotropy of distribution of the reflections indicates that the alignment of the fibers involves a pronounced anisotropic distribution of their crystalline structure, in agreement with what was previously viewed with the optical microscope under crosspolarized light. The crystalline structure of 1, preliminarily determined by single crystal diffraction (see ESI†), enables us to establish, from the 2D-GIXD analysis, the exact orientation of the molecule inside the fiber. In both the beam directions, the (010) spot lies along the vertical line, i.e. (010) planes are parallel to the substrate surface, which indicates a molecular ‘‘edge-on configuration’’ with the oligothiophene backbone lying almost perpendicularly to the substrate surface (Fig. S11†). When the X-ray beam is parallel to the fiber only a few reflections, i.e. (011), (021), (031) and (023), are recorded, whereas when the X-ray beam is perpendicular these reflections disappear and others, namely (130), (131) and (142), are recorded. This indicates that molecules self-assemble along the a direction by facing each other as shown in Fig. 4c. Analysis of the (010) arc width provides further structural information. When the X-ray beam is parallel to the fibers’ direction, the (010) arc width results larger, revealing a larger (010) misorientation that can be ascribed to a relative tilt of molecules belonging to adjacent fibers. Moreover, a smaller contribution of a pronounced misoriented plane can be related to the helical folding occurring along the fibers’ direction. These effects are not detected in the diffraction recorded with the beam perpendicular to the fibers’ direction. Similar features, also with a more pronounced anisotropy, have been recorded for aligned 2 and 3 fibers (Fig. S9 and S10†), while single crystal diffraction measurements for both octamers are under investigation. In order to perform the electrical characterization, OFETs were built in a bottom-gate, bottom contact architecture: fibers were directly grown on interdigitated gold source and drain microelectrodes prefabricated on a thermal SiO2 surface (see ESI†). Saturated charge mobilities msat were measured in air with a drain voltage VD ¼ 40 V and calculated by estimating the coverage, and therefore the effective channel widths, on the basis of optical microscopy images. Table 1 summarizes the electrical performances of the OFETs based on random (entries 1–3) and aligned (entries 4–6) 1–3 fibers. With randomly distributed fibers (entries 1–3), no field-effect characteristics were observed for 2-based OFETs, while 1- and 3based OFETs showed p-channel behavior. Although occasionally higher values of msat were observed (up to one order of magnitude higher), the mean values of electrical characteristics for devices based on randomly distributed fibers are very poor (see Table 1). On the other hand, all aligned fibers, including those of compound 2, clearly displayed p-channel field-effect characteristics (entries 4–6). As a result of alignment, for all compounds, msat amounts to more than 104 cm2 V1 s1 that, for fibers 1 and 3, corresponds to an increase of 2 orders of magnitude. Moreover, also considerable improvements of both threshold voltage VT and ION/IOFF ratio were observed. Further improvements of the electrical performances were achieved by chemical functionalization of a gate dielectric with octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS, see ESI†). The electrical transfer and output characteristics of OFETs with aligned 1–3 fibers on OTS are displayed in Fig. 5. In this bias range, the output curves do not exhibit saturation due to the high positive threshold voltage. All aligned fibers exhibit msat increased by about 3 orders of magnitude in comparison with OFETs based on randomly distributed fibers. Furthermore, the VT values are decreased down to 22–26 V, and the ION/IOFF ratios are increased by about one order of magnitude (Table 1), except in the case of 2, which exhibits an unexpected small decrease of ION/IOFF whose explanation is under investigation. Surprisingly, no measurable field effect was observed for randomly distributed fibers on OTS, and no relevant effects on the fiber Table 1 Electrical characteristics of bottom-gate, bottom contact OFETs based on randomly distributed and aligned 1–3 fibers Fig. 4 2D-GIXD images of aligned 1 fibers recorded with the X-ray beam (a) parallel and (b) perpendicular to their direction. (c) Schematic illustration of the molecular organization of oligothiophene 1 along the fiber direction (red arrow). 20854 | J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 20852–20856 Entry Fiber Substrate msat/cm2 V1 s1 VT/V ION/IOFF 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1a 2a 3a 1b 2b 3b 1b 2b 3b SiO2 SiO2 SiO2 SiO2 SiO2 SiO2 SiO2/OTS SiO2/OTS SiO2/OTS 1.38 106 — 1.15 106 4.05 104 6.72 104 3.68 104 3.02 103 1.02 103 6.24 104 288 — 199 77 53 44 26 22 22 2 — 2 4 22 25 23 11 83 a Random fibers. b Aligned fibers. This journal is ª The Royal Society of Chemistry 2012 View Article Online 6 Published on 24 August 2012. Downloaded by CNR Bologna on 21/03/2014 09:03:37. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Fig. 5 Transfer at VD ¼ 40 V and output curves at various gate voltages VG corresponding to OFETs functionalized with OTS and based on aligned fibers of: (a and b) 1; (c and d) 2; and (e and f) 3. 16 17 18 properties were observed by changing the fiber size in the range of 350–750 nm and the pitch in the range of 1600–500 nm. In summary, we have reported the first example of controlled selfassembly of fiber-forming oligothiophenes by confinement effects. This strategy allowed the direct integration of well-ordered supramolecular semiconducting fibers in OFET devices, which has meaningfully improved their electrical properties. Although compounds 1–3 have a low charge mobility when compared to a thin film of other oligothiophenes36 (which is due to their molecular structure and the different molecular packing in the ‘‘aggregate’’ phase), our study opens the way to the reproducible fabrication of functional devices that requires controlled integration of supramolecular fibers with precise density, orientation, and size. Further work will be focused on reducing the size of the printed fibers down to the nanoscale and the extension of the study to many other fibers. 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