Mixed-flow design for microfluidic printing of two-component polymer semiconductor systems

Abstract

Blade coating is a promising methodology for the large-scale printing of polymer electronics, affording nonnegligible microstructure control and properties enhancement. Nevertheless, in two-component systems, the optical/electrical/physical properties are largely dominated by phase separation and domain purity phenomena that are challenging to control. Here, we report a mixed-flow microfluidic printing approach to phase purity control, enabled by a printing blade design based on fluid flow simulations. The result is 50% efficiency enhancement for printed all-polymer solar cells vs. conventional printing and similar enhancements for polymer transistors. Mixed flow is a versatile approach to control domain purity in two-component polymeric semiconductor systems and offers a methodology for printing high-performance soft-matter electronics.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jul 09, 2020
Source ID
10.1073/pnas.2000398117

Entities

People

  • Antonio Facchetti
  • Binghao Wang
  • Dean M. DeLongchamp
  • Dengke Shen
  • Ding Zheng
  • Ferdinand S Melkonyan
  • Gang Wang
  • J. Fraser. Stoddart
  • Jinhui Yan
  • Joseph W Strzalka
  • Liang-Wen Feng
  • Simone Fabiano
  • Subhrangsu Mukherjee
  • Tobin J. Marks
  • Wei Huang
  • Yao Chen
  • Zhu Meifang

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • Argonne National Laboratory
  • Division of Materials Research
  • Donghua University
  • E-Institutes of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission
  • Formas
  • Linköping University
  • National Institute of Standards and Technology
  • National Nanotechnology Initiative
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China
  • Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai
  • Northwestern University
  • Office of Naval Research
  • Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems
  • United States Department of Commerce
  • United States Department of Energy
  • University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Materials science

Readers

  • Aerodynamics.
  • Atmospheric Science / Meteorology, specifically Wind Wave Turbulence.
  • Nanocomposite Materials Science

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics