Speakers

Prof. Natalie STINGELIN is a Full Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Chair of the School of School of Materials Science & Engineering. She hold prior positions at Imperial College London, UK, at Queen Mary University of London, UK; the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, The Netherlands; the Cavendish Laboratories, University of Cambridge, UK; and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland. She is the Director of Georgia Tech’s Center of Organic Electronics and Photonics, and was elected a 2021 Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors, a 2019 Fellow of the Materials Research Society; and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry since 2012. Her research interests encompass the broad area of functional polymer materials, polymer physics, organic electronics & photonics, and bioelectronics.

Semiconducting: Insulating Polymer Blends Targeted for Flexible Optoelectronic Applications

Abstract

In recent years, immense efforts in the flexible electronics field have led to unprecedented progress and to devices of ever increasing performance. Despite these advances, new opportunities are sought in order to widen the applications of organic-based technologies and expand their functionalities and features. Use of multicomponent systems offers a versatile approach with respect to increasing the mechanical flexibility and stability of organic electronic products as well as introducing other features such as self-encapsulation. One specific strategy is based on blending polymeric insulators with organic semiconductors; which has led to a desired improvement of the mechanical properties of organic devices, producing in certain scenarios robust and stable architectures. Here we discuss the working principle of semiconductor:insulator blends, examining the different approaches that have recently been reported in literature. We illustrate how organic field-effect transistors (OFET)s and organic solar cells (OPV)s can be fabricated with such systems without detrimental effects on the resulting device characteristics even at high contents of the insulator. Furthermore, we review the various properties that can be enhanced and/or manipulated by blending including air stability, mechanical toughness, H- vs. J-aggregation, etc.