High-resolution orthogonal patterning of organics

有机电子学是现代科学技术的一个快速发展的分支，它可以用轻质、廉价和机械柔性的有机半导体来补充传统的无机材料。有机电子材料的关键优势之一在于低温、高通量器件制造。基于溶液的各种器件的制造，如有机发光二极管（led）、场效应晶体管（fet）、太阳能电池和传感器，已经使用旋转涂层、喷墨印刷和其他湿式印刷技术进行了演示。虽然在过去的二十年中，材料合成、纯化和沉积技术的实质性改进提高了薄膜质量、均匀性和环境稳定性，但有机电子材料的化学加工仍然是需要克服的主要挑战之一。通过化学处理，我们指的是任何化学处理，例如清洗，从溶液中沉积第二层以形成多层器件，以及为光刻图案沉积/显影抗蚀剂层。由于一些重要的原因，后者已经经过几十年的发展，成长为半导体工业中占主导地位的图形技术。它提供了令人印象深刻的高分辨率，精确的配准，严格的关键尺寸控制，并行吞吐量和覆盖大面积的能力，如在大床大小的玻璃片上制造LCD背板的能力。虽然尖端的光刻设备非常昂贵，但上一代技术是负担得起的，并且预计会对有机电子产生影响，特别是考虑到喷墨印刷等替代技术在大规模生产方面仍未得到证实。该项目旨在利用正交光刻技术来创建独特的器件架构，从而阐明有机电子材料的基本原理。关键的研究机会，如在共轭聚合物的单晶域探测电荷传输的能力，将是拟议研究的重点。正交光刻技术是有机电子材料的一种突破性制版工艺，它使用了可溶于氟溶剂的抗蚀剂，是一个成功的材料世界网络项目的成果。正交光刻将用于制造复杂的多层有机半导体器件，这是其他方法无法实现的。这将使新的基础研究能够阐明有机电子器件的物理方面，而这些方面无法在更传统的结构中进行研究。

Organic electronics is a fast developing branch of modern science and technology that can complement conventional inorganic materials with lightweight, inexpensive, and mechanically flexible organic semiconductors. One of the key advantages of organic electronic materials lies in the low temperature, high-throughput device fabrication they enable. The solution-based fabrication of a variety of devices such as organic light emitting diodes (LEDs), field-effect transistors (FETs), solar cells, and sensors has been demonstrated using spin coating, ink-jet printing, and other wet printing techniques. While substantial improvements in materials synthesis, purification and deposition techniques over the past two decades enhanced film quality, uniformity, and environmental stability, the chemical processing of organic electronic materials remains one of the main challenges to be overcome. By chemical processing we mean any chemical treatment such as cleaning, depositing a second layer from solution to form multilayer devices, and depositing/developing resist layers for photolithographic patterning. The latter has, over the many decades of its development, grown into the dominant patterning technique in the semiconductor industry, for a number of important reasons. It offers an impressive combination of high resolution, precise registration, tight critical-dimension control, parallel throughput and the ability to cover large areas as demonstrated in the manufacture of LCD backplanes on glass sheets the size of a king bed. While cutting-edge photolithography equipment is very expensive, last generation technology is affordable and forecast to make an impact in organic electronics, especially given that alternative technologies such as inkjet printing are still largely unproven for large-scale manufacture.This project aims to leverage orthogonal lithography in order to create unique device architectures that will elucidate the fundamentals of organic electronic materials. Key research opportunities such as the ability to probe charge transport in a single crystalline domain of a conjugated polymer will be the focus of the proposed research. Orthogonal lithography, a breakthrough patterning process for organic electronic materials involves the use of resists soluble in fluorous solvents and resulted from a successful Materials World Network Project. Orthogonal lithography will be used to make complex, multilayer organic semiconductor devices not possible by other means. This will enable new fundamental studies to elucidate aspects of the physics of organic electronic devices which cannot be studies in more conventional structures.