Pentacene organic thin-film transistors with solution-based gelatin dielectric

Gelatin is a natural protein in the field of food, pharmaceutical and tissue engineering, which works very well as the gate dielectric for pentacene organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs). An aqueous solution process has been applied to form a gelatin thin film on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) or glass by spin-coating and subsequent casting. The device performance of pentacene OTFTs depend on the bloom number (molecular weight) of gelatin. The pentacene OTFT with 300 bloom gelatin as the gate dielectric in air ambient exhibits the best performance with an average field-effect mobility (μFE) value of ca. 16 cm2 V−1 s−1 in the saturation regime and a low threshold voltage of −1 V. The high performance of the pentacene OTFT in air ambient is attributed to the water resided in gelatin. The crystal quality of pentacene is not the key factor for the high performance.

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► Gelatin is a natural protein that serves as a good gate dielectric for pentacene organic thin-film transistors.
► The device performance of pentacene OTFTs depends on the molecular weight of gelatin.
► The pentacene OTFT exhibits an average μFE value of 16 cm2 V−1 s−1 in the saturation regime.