Printed Electronics Award Winners Announced at Printed Electronics Europe

The judges have been impressed by the way in which Merck, one of the most successful suppliers of printable organic semiconductors, has created a remarkable extension to its LisiconTM product line, based on the polythienothiophenes (PBTTT). These materials were designed to self-assemble into large, highly ordered, crystalline domains upon crystallization from a liquid-crystalline phase into extended, planar configurations, both of which facilitate high charge-carrier mobility. These solution-processable materials exhibit the highest charge mobilities to date for a polymeric semiconductor i.e. 3.5 cm2/V-sec, an achievement which was believed to be impossible only a few years ago. This performance is achievable from room temperature to extremely low temperatures, i.e. 7oK, indicating metallic-like performance. The relatively large crystalline domain sizes (~200 nm), on the length scale of lithographically accessible channel lengths, offer the potential for fabrication of single-crystal polymer transistors.