| Abstract | Backbone engineering was performed on highly rigid semiconducting polymers to include diketopyrropyrrole (DPP) units combined with pyrazine-containing moieties. These new moieties were shown to improve backbone planarity through a conformational locking effect between nitrogen and sulfur atoms. The new polymers, characterized by various techniques, were shown to possess a highly crystalline and smooth solid-state morphology, optimal for charge transport. To verify the potential of the new semiconductor for organic electronics, a series of organic field-effect transistors was fabricated. Interestingly, the new polymer was shown to possess a charge mobility of 0.27 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ and on/off current ratio of 10⁷, which is an improvement when compared to a thiophene analogue. More importantly, the polymer led to devices with high stability, with a retention of device characteristics when exposed to the same bias stress comparable to a benchmark reference polymer. The utilization of pyrazine-containing moieties as a conformational lock is a promising strategy to achieve a high performance conjugated polymer in a simple manner. Moreover, their utilization in bottom-gate bottom-contact devices highlights the potential of this new semiconductor for fully printed high-performance electronics. |
|---|
