May 18, 2006 – Researchers at Mitsubishi Chemical Corp.’s Science and Technology Research Center (MCRC) and Japan’s Ehime U. and Kyushu U. have developed a new organic semiconductor material, processed by low-cost wet coating methods, for use with new large flat-panel displays (FPD).

Previously, only pentacene had been adopted as a small-molecule material for creating high mobility organic semiconductor materials, but it requires high-cost vacuum deposition processing methods, Mitsubishi noted. Polythiophene also has been identified as a soluble polymer material, but its low mobility restricts applied to a limited area, such as electrical papers.

The new small-molecule organic semiconductor material has high mobility (1.4cm2/Vx), equal to amorphous silicon, due to a high crystalline structure. It also can be patterned by a laser instead of the traditional photolithographic method, enabling high-resolution patterning. Researchers claim to have used transistors fabricated with the new material in an organic light-emitting diode (OLED), although details and specs of the OLED were not provided.

MCRC is still working on improvements to this organic transistor material, as well as peripheral materials to be applied with it, and targets use in applications by the end of FY08. The researchers plan to demonstrate the device at the upcoming Society For Information Display (SID) conference in June.