Researchers develop world's cheapest and fastest thin-film organic transistors

In ground-breaking research for the fast-growing global electronic industry, researchers have invented what they call the world's cheapest and fastest thin-film organic transistors.

This new technology has the potential to achieve the high performance needed for high-resolution TV screens and similar electronic devices in an inexpensive way, said the researchers.

Engineers from University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and Stanford University created thin-film organic transistors that could operate more than five times faster than previous examples of this experimental technology.

The team led by Zhenan Bao, professor of chemical engineering at Stanford, and Jinsong Huang, assistant professor of mechanical and materials engineering at UNL, used the process to make cheaper organic thin-film transistors with electronic characteristics comparable to those found in expensive, curved-screen TV displays based on silicon technology.

They achieved the speed boost by altering the basic process for making thin film organic transistors, said the study published in the journal Nature Communications.

The researchers called this improved method 'off-centre spin coating'.

Even at this initial stage, 'off-centre spin coating' produced transistors with a range of speeds far above those of previous organic semiconductors and comparable to the performance of the polysilicon materials used in today's high-end electronics, claimed the study.

Further improvements to this experimental process could lead to the development of inexpensive, high-performance electronics built on transparent substrates such as glass and, eventually, clear and flexible plastics, the study said.