Highly Sensitive and Selective Liquid-Phase Sensors Based on a Solvent-Resistant Semiconducting Layers

Abstract

Sensors based on organic field-effect transistor (OFETs) platform have attracted great interest owing to their high potentials in light-weight, flexibility, and large area electronics. However, organic semiconductors have critical drawback to become a ‘practical’ sensor; poor resistance of organic semiconductors in common organic solvents. For this drawback, OFET-based sensors have been only demonstrated with vapor- and aqueous-phase analytes. Herein, we demonstrate the highly sensitive and selective OFET-based sensors based on solvent-resistant semiconducting layers. The cross-linked P3HT-azide copolymer has been introduced to increase the chemical resistance of the devices toward organic solvents. Various sensing demonstration were conducted by using various liquid-phase organic solvents and pH solutions.