Post-Fabrication Deprotection of Semiconducting Polymers for High-Performance Organic Electrochemical Transistors.
7 affiliations
- 1Chemistry Research Laboratory, University of Oxford, 12 Mansfield Road, OxfordOX1 3TA, UK.
- 2Electrical Engineering Division, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Electrical Engineering Building, 9 JJ Thomson Avenue, CambridgeCB3 0FA, UK.
- 3Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue, CambridgeCB3 0US, UK.
- 4Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California94305, United States.
- 5Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Department of Science and Technology (ITN), Linköping University, NorrköpingSE-60174, Sweden.
- 6Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California94720, United States.
- 7Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey08544, United States.
Abstract
Conventionally, the development of high-performance organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) devices heavily depends on side-chain optimization of glycolated and alkylated organic mixed ionic-electronic conducting polymers (OMIECs), which typically leads to a compromise between solubility and performance. In this study, we present a versatile design strategy employing silyl-protected side chains which can be acid-cleaved in a post-fabrication process to reveal short chains with alcohol termini, which would otherwise be unprocessable by conventional coating methods due to their insolubility. This approach decouples solubility from final device functionality, enabling solution processability during fabrication while ultimately optimizing hydrophilicity and charge transport in devices. Using PgBTTT and P100 as model polymer backbones, we demonstrate that their alcohol-functionalized analogues exhibit high μC*, excellent solvent resistance, and good electrochemical stability compared to their glycolated counterparts. Spectroelectrochemical and GIWAXS analyses reveal enhanced doping efficiency and reduced onset potentials, arising from favorable morphological reorganization upon cleavage. Overall, this work establishes alcohol functionalization as an attractive alternative to glycolation, expanding the chemical space for OMIEC device optimization and providing a platform for next-generation high-performance OECT materials.
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BibTeX
@article{tian2026postfabrication,
title = {{Post-Fabrication Deprotection of Semiconducting Polymers for High-Performance Organic Electrochemical Transistors.}},
author = {Junfu Tian and Andreas W Erhardt and Silan Zhang and Mrinalni Lyer and Weidong Li and Xian'e Li and Elena Chulanova and Benjamin J Willner and Yuyun Yao and Weimin Zhang and Adam Marks and Rachael Found and Jin Yang and Mats Fahlman and George G Malliaras and Iain McCulloch},
journal = {Journal of the American Chemical Society},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1021/jacs.6c12759},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42937879},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Post-Fabrication Deprotection of Semiconducting Polymers for High-Performance Organic Electrochemical Transistors.
AU - Junfu Tian
AU - Andreas W Erhardt
AU - Silan Zhang
AU - Mrinalni Lyer
AU - Weidong Li
AU - Xian'e Li
AU - Elena Chulanova
AU - Benjamin J Willner
AU - Yuyun Yao
AU - Weimin Zhang
AU - Adam Marks
AU - Rachael Found
AU - Jin Yang
AU - Mats Fahlman
AU - George G Malliaras
AU - Iain McCulloch
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
JO - Journal of the American Chemical Society
DO - 10.1021/jacs.6c12759
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42937879
AB - Conventionally, the development of high-performance organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) devices heavily depends on side-chain optimization of glycolated and alkylated organic mixed ionic-electronic conducting polymers (OMIECs), which typically leads to a compromise between solubility and performance. In this study, we present a versatile design strategy employing silyl-protected side chains which can be acid-cleaved in a post-fabrication process to reveal short chains with alcohol termini, which would otherwise be unprocessable by conventional coating methods due to their insolubility. This approach decouples solubility from final device functionality, enabling solution processability during fabrication while ultimately optimizing hydrophilicity and charge transport in devices. Using PgBTTT and P100 as model polymer backbones, we demonstrate that their alcohol-functionalized analogues exhibit high μC*, excellent solvent resistance, and good electrochemical stability compared to their glycolated counterparts. Spectroelectrochemical and GIWAXS analyses reveal enhanced doping efficiency and reduced onset potentials, arising from favorable morphological reorganization upon cleavage. Overall, this work establishes alcohol functionalization as an attractive alternative to glycolation, expanding the chemical space for OMIEC device optimization and providing a platform for next-generation high-performance OECT materials.
SN - 0002-7863
SN - 1520-5126
ER -