Covalent Organic Frameworks for Electrochemical Transistor

The direct communication between humans and electronics is one of the major targets for the current IT technology. To achieve this, a special medium is needed to connect electronic and biological systems.

Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are such devices that can transduce ionic signal to electronic signal, thus building a communication pathway between life and computers.

The efficiency of an OECT device is heavily dependent on the transporting materials that are responsible for ionic and electronic conductance.

However, the conventional OECT transporting materials are incapable of both large ionic capacitance and high electronic mobility, limiting OECTs´ performance.To solve this problem, I will introduce an emerging material, covalent organic framework (COF) as a new generation of porous semiconductors for OECTs.

In the first stage of the project (1-year), I will synthesize a conjugated but nonplanar building block for the three-dimensional (3D) COF construction.

Based on the reported organic synthetic route, proper modifications will be made for adequate hydrophilicity and porosity control. Then, 3D COF films will be made respectively by the sol-gel evolution and interfacial synthetic protocols (1.5-years).

Finally, the fabricated 3D COF film will be used for OECT device construction, followed by systematic electrical characterization (1.5-years).The success of the planned research will start a new era, marked by COFs as the main transducing material, for OECTs.