The objective of this research is to develop a novel approach for the fabrication of high performance organic field effect transistors by exploiting strong pi-pi interaction between the polymer chains and the polymer-electrodes for both efficient charge injection and transport. The approach is via epitaxial growth of conjugated crystalline polymer nanowires on the single walled carbon nanotubes and graphene electrodes.
Organic transistors will be fabricated via direct growth of crystalline poly (3-hexylthiophene) and poly(3,3-didodecylquaterthiophene) nanowires on the carbon nanotubes and graphene electrodes and their charge transport properties will be studied. The proposed transistors will have the following specific advantages: (i) crystalline polymer nanowires will have improved nanomorphology, (ii) strong pi-pi interaction between electrodes and semiconducting materials will provide improved charge injection, (iii) higher on-current and operational frequency will make them suitable for high frequency operation, and (iv) owing to reduced contact resistance and better channel morphology, nanoscale transistors will be demonstrated without any short channel effect.
The successful demonstration of high performance polymer nanowires based organic transistors will have significant impact in low cost plastic electronics including flexible displays, sensor sheets, radiofrequency identification tags, and photovoltaics. Education and outreach activities includes, (i) interdisciplinary training of graduate, undergraduate and high school students, (ii) integration of research results in a new graduate level course through lecture and lab demonstration, (iii) minority students recruitment through UCF Office of Diversity Initiative and Women?s Research Center and (iv) outreach to local high schools through visits and to the community through website and news letters.
