Natural Waxes from Plant and Animal Origin as Dielectrics for Low-voltage Organic Field Effect Transistors

Abstract

We demonstrate in this work the practical use of naturally extracted waxes of plant and animal origin, i.e., beeswax, carnauba wax, rice bran wax, lanolin wax, and two shellac waxes as dielectrics in organic field effect transistors (OFETs). We present a thorough characterization of their material properties, processability and film forming characteristic, surface characterization, dielectric investigation and the fabrication of field effect transistors with two classic organic semiconductors, i.e., pentacene and fullerene C60. We show that operating voltages as low as 1 V are possible for all the OFETs using blade coating as fabrication method of waxes solubilized in their appropriate solvent, chloroform or n-octane. Although in general difficult to process in thin films, we demonstrate in this work the practical applicability of these natural waxes for electronics fabrication.