Enhancement in the mobility of solution processable polymer based FET by incorporating graphene interlayer

The excellent solution-processability of polymers have provoked the interest for their potential applications in cost-effective electronic devices. However, these devices usually have low mobility. The study manifests an innovative approach to enhance the mobility of polymer-based field effect transistors (FETs) by incorporating graphene as an intervening layer between poly [4-(4,4-dihexadecyl-4H-cyclopenta [1,2-b:5,4b′] dithiophen-2-yl)-alt-[1,2,5] thiadiazolo [3,4-c] pyridine] (PCDTPT) channel and dielectric layer dielectric. An intentional discontinuity in the graphene layer was introduced to affirm the role of polymer as channel and graphene as carrier injector. The results divulge the enhancement in the performance of PCDTPT-graphene and PCDTPT-graphene (discontinuous) device as compare to pristine PCDTPT based FET. A significantly high mobility i.e. 13.08 cm2/V.sec is achieved for PCDTPT-graphene hybrid device which is 32 times higher than that of pristine PCDTPT based FET (0.41 cm2/V.sec). These results signify that the incorporation of atomically thin graphene layer is a novel route for fabrication of high mobility solution-processed polymer-based FETs for next generation cost effective and high performance electronic devices.