Over 60 h of Stable Water‐Operation for N‐Type Organic Electrochemical Transistors with Fast Response and Ambipolarity

Abstract

Abstract Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are of great interest in low‐power bioelectronics and neuromorphic computing, as they utilize organic mixed ionic‐electronic conductors (OMIECs) to transduce ionic signals into electrical signals. However, the poor environmental stability of OMIEC materials significantly restricts the practical application of OECTs. Therefore, the non‐fused planar naphthalenediimide (NDI)‐dialkoxybithiazole (2Tz) copolymers are fine‐tuned through varying ethylene glycol (EG) side chain lengths from tri(ethylene glycol) to hexa(ethylene glycol) (namely P‐XO, X = 3–6) to achieve OECTs with high‐stability and low threshold voltage. As a result, the NDI‐2Tz copolymers exhibit ambipolarity, rapid response (<10 ms), and ultra‐high n‐type stability. Notably, the P‐6O copolymers display a threshold voltage as low as 0.27 V. They can operate in n‐type mode in an aqueous solution for over 60 h, maintaining an on‐off ratio of over 105. This work sheds light on the design of exceptional n‐type/ambipolar materials for OECTs. It demonstrates the potential of incorporating these ambipolar polymers into water‐operational integrated circuits for long‐term biosensing systems and energy‐efficient brain‐inspired computing.

Keywords

• ambipolar organic mixed ionic‐electronic conductors
• organic electrochemical transistors
• stability
• threshold voltage