Touching polymer chains by organic field-effect transistors
Wei Shao1,4, Huanli Dong1, Zhigang Wang2* & Wenping Hu1,3*

1Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China, 2Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology ofChina, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China, 3Department of Chemistry, School of Science, Tianjin University and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin), Tianjin 300072, China, 4Samsung R&D Institute China - Beijing (SRC-Beijing), Beijing 100028, China.

Sci. Rep. 4, 6387; DOI:10.1038/srep06387 (2014).

http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140917/srep06387/full/srep06387.html

Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) are used to directly “touch” the movement and dynamics of polymer chains, and then determine T_g. As a molecular-level probe, the conducting channel of OFETs exhibits several unique advantages: 1) it directly detects the motion and dynamics of polymer chain at T_g; 2) it allows the measurement of size effects in ultrathin polymer films (even down to 6 nm), which bridges the gap in understanding effects between surface and interface. This facile and reliable determination of T_g of polymer films and the understanding of polymer chain dynamics guide a new prospect for OFETs besides their applications in organic electronics and casting new light on the fundamental understanding of the nature of polymer chain dynamics.