Carbon nanotube/polymer hybrid film for optimizing electron transport in organic electrochemical transistor

Recently, organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) has been extensively studied as an emerging flexible electronic due to its high transconductance, biocompatibility, and capability of ion-to-electron transformation. To further promote the application of OECTs in bioelectronics, n-type and p- type conducting polymers with comparable performance are required. However, recent studies typically focus on the p-type OECTs, while the development of n-type OECT suffers from the instability and low electrical performance of the electron-transporting polymers. Here, a strategy to improve the n-type OECT transconductance that the construction of the carbon nanotube network in the channel to enhance the carrier transport efficiency was reported. The transconductance of poly(benzimidazoben zophenanthroline) (BBL)/single-walled carbon nanotubes hybrid film OECT was improved by similar to 15 times of the pristine BBL OECTs, and the operational stability in the aqueous environment was also enhanced. Furthermore, the carbon nanotube network mitigates the transconductance degradation of the flexible devices induced by crack damage, and the mechanism of the performance enhancement was clarified.