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Single‐Material OECT‐Based Flexible Complementary Circuits Featuring Polyaniline in Both Conducting Channels
Author(s) -
Travaglini Lorenzo,
Micolich Adam P.,
Cazorla Claudio,
Zeglio Erica,
Lauto Antonio,
Mawad Damia
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
advanced functional materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.069
H-Index - 322
eISSN - 1616-3028
pISSN - 1616-301X
DOI - 10.1002/adfm.202007205
Subject(s) - polyaniline , materials science , transistor , conductive polymer , nanotechnology , bioelectronics , electrochemistry , electrolyte , electronic circuit , active layer , optoelectronics , conjugated system , thin film transistor , polymer , voltage , electrode , biosensor , electrical engineering , layer (electronics) , chemistry , composite material , polymerization , engineering
The organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) with a conjugated polymer as the active material is the elementary unit of organic bioelectronic devices. Improved functionalities, such as low power consumption, can be achieved by building complementary circuits featuring two or more OECTs. Complementary circuits commonly combine both p ‐ and n ‐type transistors to reduce power draw. While p ‐type OECTs are readily available, n ‐type OECTs are less common mainly due to poor stability of the n ‐type active channel material in aqueous electrolyte. Here, a complementary circuit is made using a pair of OECTs having polyaniline (PANI) as the channel material in both transistors. PANI, with a finite electrochemical window accessible at voltages lower than 1 V, exhibits a peak in current versus gate voltage when used as an active channel in an OECT. The current peak has two slopes, one n ‐like and one p ‐like, which correspond to different electrochemical regimes of the same underlying conjugated polymer. The electrochemistry enables the design of a complementary circuit using only PANI as the channel material. The PANI‐based circuit is shown to have excellent performance with gain of ≈7 and is transferred on a flexible biocompatible chitosan substrate with demonstrated operation in aqueous electrolyte.