RESEARCH

Organic materials have long been considered insulators due to their poor optoelectronic properties. Until very recently, they have been mostly utilized in non-electronic applications such as packaging, textile, and manufacturing due to their advantageous mechanical and physical properties over metals and ceramics. Today, It is almost impossible to find an aspect of our lives that is not affected by organics. The idea of using organic materials in microelectronics was first demonstrated by three Nobel laureates (2000-Nobel Prize in Chemistry), Hideki Shirakawa, Alan J. Heeger, and Alan G MacDiarmid, in the mid-1970s. The discovery was based on a simple experiment of doping polyacetylene with iodine, which resulted in a tremendous increase in electrical conductivity (108-fold), making it close to those of metals. Following these initial experiments, functional organic materials have attracted significant attention over the last three decades as electro-active materials for the development of printable and flexible electronic devices such as organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs), light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), light-emitting transistors (OLETs), and photovoltaic cells (OPVs). Owing to their unique features over traditional inorganic materials, they are envisioned as essential components for several next-generation optoelectronic applications including low-power flexible displays/electronic papers, wearable electronics, printable RFID tags/sensors, and flexible solar panels.