Large-Scale Alignment of Polymer Semiconductor Nanowires for Efficient Charge Transport via Controlled Evaporation of Confined Fluids

Long-range alignment of conjugated polymers is as critical as polymer chain packing for achieving efficient charge transport in polymer thin films used in electronic and optoelectronic devices. Here, the present study reports a facile, scalable strategy that enables the deposition of macroscopically aligned polymer semiconductor nanowire (NW)-array films with highly enhanced charge carrier mobility, using a modified controlled evaporative self-assembly (MCESA) technique. Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) based on highly oriented poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT)-NW films exhibit more than 10-fold enhancement of carrier mobility, with the highest mobility of 0.13 cm ² V ^-1 s ^-1 , compared to the OFETs based on pristine P3HT films. Significantly, large-area aligned P3HT NW-films, which are deposited over 12 arrays of transistors on a 4 in. wafer by an MCESA coating, result in lower device performance variation (i.e., standard deviation ∼ ±0.0172 (16%) cm ² V ^-1 s ^-1 ) as well as an excellent average device performance (i.e., average charge mobility ? 0.11 cm ² V ^-1 s ^-1 ), compared to those obtained using the conventional CESA coating, overcoming a critical challenge in the field of OFETs.