ION MODULATED ORGANIC TRANSISTORS - Doria

Nikolai KaihovirtaOUTLINE OF THESISOUTLINE OF THESISThe transistor is one of the greatest technological innovations of the 20thcentury. The switching and/or signal amplifying properties are utilizedin most inorganic electronic applications and a single microprocessormay contain billions of transistors. Polymeric materials providesolubility, flexibility and low cost into transistors, in particular. On theother hand, the slower switching speeds and the lower integrationdensity for organic transistors will prevent them from competing with theestablished inorganic transistors. The previous work on the low-voltage(< 3 V) hygroscopic insulator field-effect transistor (HIFET), achieved inour laboratory by T. G. Bäcklund, et. al., has served as a starting-point forthis work. The targets were to continue the research on the HIFETtowards large-scale manufacturing, to improve our knowledge on ionmodulated organic transistors (both electrolyte gated organic field-effecttransistors (OFETs) and organic electrochemical transistors (ECTs)) and todevelop novel concepts by utilizing ion-conducting membranes.The thesis is based on five papers and constitutes of two parts. Part Iis, furthermore, divided into four chapters. In Chapter 1, a comprehensivetheory on the organic transistors is provided, with particular focus on thetraditional OFET. The same theory can be directly applied on theelectrolyte gated OFETs as well, which is the central transistor type in thisthesis. The experimental details are covered in Chapter 2. Chapter 3highlights the most important findings and discussions based on the fivepapers, while Chapter 4 provides a summary of this thesis. The fivepapers are attached in Part II.The research in this thesis has been done within the Center forFunctional Materials (FUNMAT) and Graduate School of MaterialsResearch (GSMR). FUNMAT is a joint research center betweenlaboratories from Physics, Polymer Technology, Physical Chemistry andPaper Coating and Converting in Åbo Akademi University as well asPolymer Chemistry in University of Helsinki. The strategy for FUNMATis to develop materials, routes and devices towards printedfunctionalities by combining the know-how from the participatinglaboratories. FUNMAT was funded by Åbo Akademi Foundation 2006 –08 and is, from 2008 onwards, a National Center of Excellence. GSMRcombines 13 laboratories from both Åbo Akademi University andv