Carbon nanotubes-semiconductor networks for organic electronics: The pickup stick transistor

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Abstract
We demonstrate an alternative path for achieving high transconductance organic transistors in spite of relatively large source to drain distances. The improvement of the electronic characteristic of such a scheme is equivalent to a 60-fold increase in mobility of the underlying organic semiconductor. The method is based on percolating networks, which we create from a dispersion of individual single-wall carbon nanotubes and narrow ropes within an organic semiconducting host. The majority of current paths between source and drain follow the metallic nanotubes but require a short, switchable semiconducting link to complete the circuit. With these nanotube-semiconducting composites we achieve effectively a 60 × reduction in source to drain distance, which is equivalent to a 60-fold increase of the “effective” mobility of the starting semiconducting material with a minor decrease of the on/off current ratio. These field-induced percolating networks allow for the fabrication of high-transconductance transistors having relatively large source to drain distances that can be manufactured inexpensively by commercially available printing techniques.