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Dago M de Leeuw

Publications and source records attributed to Dago M de Leeuw.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

Control of ambipolar thin film architectures by co-self-assembling oligo(p-phenylenevinylene)s and perylene bisimides.

Control of thin film morphology by self-assembly of, respectively, p-type oligo(p-phenylenevinylene)s (OPV)s and n-type perylenebisimides (PBI)s in solution prior to processing, results in film architectures consisting of uniform rodlike domains as shown by atomic force microscopy. Such films from self-assembled molecules show superior charge-carrier mobility in comparison with films processed from molecular dissolved molecules. Moreover, connecting the OPV and PBI building blocks through hydrogen-bonding interactions creates dyad complexes that cofacially stack in apolar solvents. Ambipolar field-effect transistors constructed from these dyad complexes show two independent pathways for charge transport. In strong contrast, processing of OPV and PBI, that are not connected by hydrogen bonds, form charge transfer donor-acceptor complexes that show no mobility in field-effect transistors presumably due to an unfavorable supramolecular organization.

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Towards molecular electronics with large-area molecular junctions.

Electronic transport through single molecules has been studied extensively by academic and industrial research groups. Discrete tunnel junctions, or molecular diodes, have been reported using scanning probes, break junctions, metallic crossbars and nanopores. For technological applications, molecular tunnel junctions must be reliable, stable and reproducible. The conductance per molecule, however, typically varies by many orders of magnitude. Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) may offer a promising route to the fabrication of reliable devices, and charge transport through SAMs of alkanethiols within nanopores is well understood, with non-resonant tunnelling dominating the transport mechanism. Unfortunately, electrical shorts in SAMs are often formed upon vapour deposition of the top electrode, which limits the diameter of the nanopore diodes to about 45 nm. Here we demonstrate a method to manufacture molecular junctions with diameters up to 100 microm with high yields (> 95 per cent). The junctions show excellent stability and reproducibility, and the conductance per unit area is similar to that obtained for benchmark nanopore diodes. Our technique involves processing the molecular junctions in the holes of a lithographically patterned photoresist, and then inserting a conducting polymer interlayer between the SAM and the metal top electrode. This simple approach is potentially low-cost and could pave the way for practical molecular electronics.

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Large area liquid crystal monodomain field-effect transistors.

Butyl, hexyl, and decyl derivatives of the liquid-crystalline organic semiconductor 5,5' '-bis(5-alkyl-2-thienylethynyl)-2,2':5',2' '-terthiophene were synthesized and studied with respect to their structural, optical, and electrical properties. By means of an optimized thermal annealing scheme the hexyl and decyl compounds could be processed into self-assembled monodomain films of up to 150 mm in diameter. These were investigated with X-ray diffractometry, which revealed a clearly single-crystalline monoclinic morphology with lamellae parallel to the substrate. Within the lamellae the molecules were found to arrange with a tilt of about 50 degrees with the rubbing direction of the polyimide alignment layer. The resulting, close side-to-side packing was confirmed by measurements of the UV/vis absorption, which showed a dichroic ratio of 19 and indicated H-aggregation. AFM analyses revealed self-affinity in the surface roughness of the monodomain. The compounds showed bipolar charge transport in TOF measurements, with hole mobilities reaching up to 0.02 cm(2)/Vs and maximum electron mobilities around 0.002 cm(2)/Vs. The hexyl derivative was processed into large-area monodomain top-gate field-effect transistors, which were stable for months and showed anisotropic hole mobilities of up to 0.02 cm(2)/Vs. Compared to multidomain bottom-gate transistors the monodomain formation allowed for a mobility increase by 1 order of magnitude.

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High anisotropy of the field-effect transistor mobility in magnetically aligned discotic liquid-crystalline semiconductors.

A magnetic field has been utilized for producing highly oriented films of a substituted hexabenzocoronene (HBC). Optical microscopy studies revealed large area HBC monodomains that covered the entire film, while wide-angle X-ray measurements showed that the HBC molecules are aligned with their planes along the applied field. On the basis of this method, solution-processed field-effect transistors (FET) have been constructed with charge carrier mobilities of up to 10(-3) cm2/V.s, which are significantly enhanced with respect to the unaligned material. Exceptionally high mobility anisotropies of 25-75 for current flow parallel and perpendicular to the alignment direction have been measured as a function of the channel length. Atomic force microscopy performed on the FET structures reveals fibril superstructures that are oriented perpendicularly to the magnetic field direction, consisting of molecular columns with a slippage angle of 40 degrees between the molecules. For channel lengths larger than 2.5 mum, the fibrils are smaller than the electrode spacing, which adversely affects the device performance.

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Spatially correlated charge transport in organic thin film transistors.

Hole mobility in organic ultrathin film field-effect transistors is studied as a function of the coverage. For layered sexithienyl films, the charge carrier mobility rapidly increases with increasing coverage and saturates at a coverage of about two monolayers. This shows that the first two molecular layers next to the dielectric interface dominate the charge transport. A quantitative analysis of spatial correlations shows that the second layer is crucial, as it provides efficient percolation pathways for carriers generated in both the first and the second layers. The upper layers do not actively contribute either because their domains are smaller than the ones in the second layer or because the carrier density is negligible.

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Flexible active-matrix displays and shift registers based on solution-processed organic transistors.

At present, flexible displays are an important focus of research. Further development of large, flexible displays requires a cost-effective manufacturing process for the active-matrix backplane, which contains one transistor per pixel. One way to further reduce costs is to integrate (part of) the display drive circuitry, such as row shift registers, directly on the display substrate. Here, we demonstrate flexible active-matrix monochrome electrophoretic displays based on solution-processed organic transistors on 25-microm-thick polyimide substrates. The displays can be bent to a radius of 1 cm without significant loss in performance. Using the same process flow we prepared row shift registers. With 1,888 transistors, these are the largest organic integrated circuits reported to date. More importantly, the operating frequency of 5 kHz is sufficiently high to allow integration with the display operating at video speed. This work therefore represents a major step towards 'system-on-plastic'.

Biocompatible Materials↗