Design and Fabrication of Ultrathin Nanoporous Donor–Acceptor Copolymer-Based Organic Field-Effect Transistors for Enhanced VOC Sensing Performance

Abstract

The development of organic field-effect transistor (OFET) chemical sensors with high sensing performance and good air stability has remained a persistent challenge, thereby hindering their practical application. Herein, an OFET sensor based on a donor–acceptor copolymer is shown to provide high responsivity, sensitivity, and selectivity toward polar volatile organic compounds, as well as good air stability. In detail, a polymer blend of N-alkyl-diketopyrrolo-pyrrole-dithienylthieno[3,2-b]thiophene (DPP-DTT) and polystyrene is coated onto an FET substrate via shearing-assisted phase separation (SAPS) combined with selective solvent etching to fabricate the DPP-DTT-based OFET device having an ultrathin nanoporous structure suitable for gas sensing applications. This is achieved via optimization of the film morphology by varying the shear rate to adjust the dynamic balance between the shear and capillary forces to obtain an ultrathin thickness (～8 nm) and nanopore size (80 nm) that are favorable for the efficient diffusion and interaction of analytes with the active layer. In particular, the sensor presents high responsivities toward methanol (～70%), acetone (～51.3%), ethanol (～39%), and isopropyl alcohol (IPA) (～29.8%), along with fast response and recovery times of ～80 and 234 s, respectively. Moreover, the average sensitivity was determined to be 5.75%/ppm from the linear plot of the responsivity against the methanol concentration in the range of 1–100 ppm. Importantly, the device also exhibits excellent long-term (30-day) air and thermal storage stability, thereby demonstrating its high potential for practical applications.