This dissertation aims to understand the effect of incompatible side chains on the complexes of pi-conjugated electron-rich donors and electron-deficient acceptors in solution. The role of incompatible side chains were studied in simple mixtures of organic donor and acceptor molecules that form donor-acceptor complexes. The incompatible branched and linear alkane side chains on the acceptor and donor respectively prevented complex formation between naphthalene diimide acceptor and naphthalene ether donor. However, the incompatible hydrocarbon-fluorocarbon and polar-non polar side chain pairs did not affect complex formation between the donor and acceptor. In quaterthiophene-naphthalene diimide dyads, the incompatibility of the side chain on the acceptor with respect to the side chain on the donor do not have any influence on the donor-acceptor complex formation. Irrespective of the attached side chains, all the dyads show charge transfer absorption bands and have similar electron transfer rates. The effect of point of attachment of the acceptor to the donor in the quaterthiophene-flavin dyad is also studied.

<p>In the last 30 years, the possibility of using polymeric thin film transistors (PTFTs) in flexible display, sensors, radio-frequency identification tag and the potential of using printing or low-cost reel-to-reel fabrication techniques has stimulated much research and technology development in these devices. However, the utilization of PTFTs needs better understanding of the organic semiconductor material’s properties and their physical and chemical mechanisms. In addition, the PTFTs show poor stability compared to the crystalline transistors. The PTFTs can have significant variations of threshold voltage, mobility, on/off ratio even when deposited using the same conditions on the same substrate. Therefore, better understanding of the PTFTs’ physical and chemical properties and the improvement of the characterization techniques are needed.</p> <p>The design and fabrication of the novel polymeric semiconductor, diketopyrrolopyrrole β-unsubstituted quaterthiophene (DKPP-βT) based bottom-gated top-contact PTFT and microfluidics PTFT are introduced in this thesis. The microfluidic PTFT consists of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannel which guides liquids flowing over the top of the semiconductor channel.</p> <p>From consecutive electrical measurements, it was found that the threshold voltage (V_T) follows a logarithmic law function of the time. Illuminating the PTFTs results in shifts of the initial value of the threshold voltage linearly towards more positive value. The mobility is unaffected by time or by illumination. However, the off current increased proportionally with light. Also, the contact resistance extracted by the parameter compensated transmission line model (TLM) method is ohmic and gate bias independent for high gate biases.</p> <p>The novel microfluidic PTFT enables the study of the sensing property of the DKPP-βT PTFT of liquid analytes. The threshold voltage evolution in the deionized (DI) water measurements also follows logarithmic function of the time with a slightly steeper slope than in air. The mobility only slightly decreases initially on exposure to DI water. The off current in DI water measurements decrease compared with air measurements. In acid solution measurements, the threshold voltage remains stable and the mobility slightly increased, compared with measurements in water. Additionally, the subthreshold slope and off current in both acid solution and salt water measurements show similar results to the DI water measurements. While the base solution damages the device immediately. The stable performance of DKPP-βT PTFTs with DI water and low-concentration salt water in the microchannel makes it a promising biosensor.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

In dieser Arbeit wird die Phasenseparation und Mischung zwischen konjugierten Stäb-chenmolekülen in dünnen Filmen untersucht. Hauptaugenmerk liegt darauf zu ergrün-den welche molekularen Eigenschaften zu Mischung und/ oder Phasenseparation füh-ren. Mit den 5 Molekülen Pentacen (PEN), Quaterthiophen (4T), Sexithiophen (6T), p-Sexiphenylen (6P), alpha,omega-Dihexylsexithiophen (DH6T) werden Materialpaare zusammen gestellt, die sich in den Parametern „optische und elektrische Eigenschaf-ten“, „Länge des konjugierten Kerns“ und Alkylkettensubstitution unterscheiden. Alle Schichten werden mittels organischer Molekularstrahlabscheidung auf die Substrate Siliziumoxid und Mylar, einer PET Folie, simultan von zwei Quellen aufgedampft. Das Mischungsverhältnis wird mittels der individuellen Aufdampfraten eingestellt und eine Gesamtrate von 0.5 nm/min eingehalten. Es wird Phasenseparation für Materialpaare mit ungleicher konjugierter Kernlänge, z.B. [4T/6T], beobachtet. Erstaunlicherweise führt die Co-Verdampfung von Molekülpaaren mit ähnlicher konjugierter Kernlänge [4T/PEN] und [6T/6P] zu wohlgeordneten Fil-men, in denen die Moleküle in gemischten Lagen parallel zur Substratoberfläche auf-wachsen und die Längsachse der Moleküle fast senkrecht zur Substratoberfläche orien-tiert ist. Molekülpaare mit ähnlicher konjugierter Kernlänge und Alkylsubstitution [6T/DH6T] und [6P/DH6T] zeigten ebenfalls geordneten Schichten, wobei als Besonderheit eine lineare Abhängigkeit des Lagenabstandes vom DH6T-Gehalt zu beobachten ist. Dies wird mit einer Phasenseparation in eine aromatische und eine alkyl Domäne erklärt. Mit abnehmendem DH6T-Gehalt im Film ist die Alkyldomäne weniger dicht gepackt, was auf Grund der Flexibilität der Alkylketten zu einer Abnahme des gesamten Lagenab-standes führt. Die besonders geringe Oberflächenrauhigkeit und die miteinander verbundenen Inseln der [DH6T/6T] Filme prädestinieren sie zur Verwendung in Feldeffekttransistoren. Es wird gezeigt, dass es möglich ist, die Ladungsträgerdichte im Kanal durch Änderung des Verhältnisses zwischen DH6T und 6T so zu verändern, dass der Transistor im Verar-mungs- oder Anreicherungsregime betrieben werden kann. Dabei bleibt die Ladungsträ-germobilität auf gleich bleibend hohem Niveau. Dies entspricht dem Dotieren eines anorganischen Halbleiters. / This thesis is centered on studies of phase separation and mixing in co-deposited thin films of rod-like conjugated molecules. The main focus is to determine which molecular properties lead to phase separation and/or mixing of two materials. To address this question I used five materials, of importance in the context of “organic electronics”: pentacene (PEN), quaterthiophene (4T), sexithiophene (6T), p-sexiphenylene (6P), alpha,omega-dihexylsexithiophene (DH6T). With these it was possible to form material pairs which differ in the parameters: energy levels, length of the conjugated core, and alkyl-end-chain-substitution. All films were deposited by organic molecular beam deposition onto the chemically inert substrates silicon oxide and Mylar, a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) foil. The material pairs were deposited simultaneously from two thermal sublima-tion sources. The mixing ratio was controlled by the individual deposition rates, which were measured online by a microbalance. The total deposition rate was 0.5 nm/min, and the film thicknesses ranged from 4 nm to 40 nm. Phase separation is observed for material pairs with dissimilar conjugated core sizes, i.e. [4T/6T]. Noteworthy, the co-deposition of material pairs with similarly sized conju-gated cores [4T/PEN] and [6T/6P] lead to well ordered layered structures. The mole-cules show mixing within layers on a molecular scale and the long molecular axis is ori-ented almost perpendicular to the substrate surface. Material pairs with similarly sized conjugated core and alkyl-end-chain-substitution [6T/DH6T] and [6P/DH6T] show also growth in mixed layered structures. An especially appealing fact is that the interlayer distance increases proportional to the DH6T content in the film. This can be explained with a phase separation into an aromatic and an alkyl domain vertically to the substrate surface. A decrease of the DH6T content in the film leads to a less dense packing in the alkyl domain. This leads, due to the flexibility of the alkyl chains, to a decrease of the overall interlayer distance. The low surface corrugation and the interconnected islands render the material pair [6T/DH6T] well suitable for the use as active layer in organic field effect transistors. It is shown that it is possible to tune the charge carrier density in the channel by changing the ratio between 6T and DH6T. This effect enables switching the transistor from en-hancement to depletion mode, while maintaining a high charge carrier mobility. This is comparable to p-type doping of inorganic semiconductors.