Enhanced charge-carrier mobility in polymer nanofibers realized by solvent-resistant soft nanolithography

Abstract

We realize nanofibers of regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) by solvent-resistant nanolithography and use them as the active medium in organic field effect transistors. This process favors a remarkable improvement of the device performances, since we exploit the nanofluidic flow in perfluoropolyether capillaries and the slow solvent evaporation rate in the mold cavities to induce the reorganization of the P3HT chains and obtain a charge carrier mobility 60 times higher than in the corresponding homogenous films. The precise control of the structure cross-section (sub-100 nm) and of the spatial arrangement on the transistor electrodes is very promising for the development of one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures of conjugated materials with high field-effect mobility, applicable to miniaturized optoelectronic devices.