Organic semiconductors

A team of Cornell University researchers is planning to develop a method to connect wires to organic transistors. They are hoping this could lead to computers that are smaller, cheaper and more flexible - literally.

As devices grow smaller, making connections to them becomes more difficult. When metals come in contact with organics, metal atoms tend to diffuse into the organic material, muddying up the contact.

The researchers will study in detail the chemistry of the bond formed when organic films are deposited on metals (or in some cases, insulators) and, most importantly the inverse - where metals are deposited on the organic.

Their approach involves 'self-assembly' where a metal or insulating substrate is masked to form a pattern, such as the pattern of wires to where a metal or insulating substrate is masked to form a pattern such as the pattern of wires to which circuit elements are connected, and a film of organic material is allowed to deposit on the unmasked areas.

Later they will examine additional chemical reactions in which metallic thin films are deposited on top of the organic layers to make a second contact with the organic layer. All useful electronic components are either two- or three- terminal devices.

They plan to test layers of various metals and metal nitrides for these contacts. One approach will be the synthesis of molecules containing both the metal and the organic where the inorganic-organic interface is prefabricated into the molecule structure.

The eventual goal is to produce testable devices and demonstrate that they have useful properties, but not to make fully functional circuits.