Thin-Film Engineering of Solution-Processable n-Type Silicon Phthalocyanines for Organic Thin-Film Transistors

Metal and metalloid phthalocyanines are an abundant and established class of materials widely used in the dye and pigment industry as well as in commercial photoreceptors. Silicon phthalocyanines (SiPcs) are among the highest-performing n-type semiconductor materials in this family when used in organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) as their performance and solid-state arrangement are often increased through axial substitution. Herein, we study eight axially substituted SiPcs and their integration into solution-processed n-type OTFTs. Electrical characterization of the OTFTs, combined with atomic force microscopy (AFM), determined that the length of the alkyl chain affects device performance and thin-film morphology. The effects of high-temperature annealing and spin coating time on film formation, two key processing steps for fabrication of OTFTs, were investigated by grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) to elucidate the relationship between thin-film microstructure and device performance. Thermal annealing was shown to change both film crystallinity and SiPc molecular orientation relative to the substrate surface. Spin time affected film crystallinity, morphology, and interplanar d-spacing, thus ultimately modifying device performance. Of the eight materials studied, bis(tri-n-butylsilyl oxide) SiPc exhibited the greatest electron field-effect mobility (0.028 cm2 V–1 s–1, a threshold voltage of 17.6 V) of all reported solution-processed SiPc derivatives.