Interfacial engineering has long been a vital means of improving thin-film device performance, especially for organic electronics, perovskites, and hybrid devices. It greatly facilitates the fabrication and performance of solution-processed thin-film devices, including organic field effect transistors (OFETs), organic solar cells (OSCs), perovskite solar cells (PVSCs), and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). However, due to the limitation of traditional interfacial materials, further progress of these thin-film devices is hampered particularly in terms of stability, flexibility, and sensitivity. The deadlock has gradually been broken through the development of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), which possess distinct benefits in transparency, diversity, stability, sensitivity, selectivity, and surface passivation ability. In this review, we first showed the evolution of SAMs, elucidating their working mechanisms and structure-property relationships by assessing a wide range of SAM materials reported to date. A comprehensive comparison of various SAM growth, fabrication, and characterization methods was presented to help readers interested in applying SAM to their works. Moreover, the recent progress of the SAM design and applications in mainstream thin-film electronic devices, including OFETs, OSCs, PVSCs and OLEDs, was summarized. Finally, an outlook and prospects section summarizes the major challenges for the further development of SAMs used in thin-film devices. 

Self-Assembled Monolayers for Interfacial Engineering in Solution-Processed Thin-Film Electronic Devices: Design, Fabrication, and Applications.

Flexible transparent electrodes (FTEs) possess excellent optoelectrical properties, mechanical robustness, and environmental adaptability are important for the industrial scale development of flexible electronics. Silver nanowires (AgNWs) are widely used in FTEs owing to their excellent optoelectrical properties and mechanical flexibility. However, the high surface roughness and poor stability of AgNWs FTEs still limit their practical applications. Here, highly stable FTEs are demonstrated via combining AgNWs and biomaterial propolis which is eco-friendly and antioxidative. The AgNWs/propolis composite transparent electrodes exhibit excellent optoelectrical performance as well as a smooth surface (root-mean-square roughness ∼ 6.2 nm). Meanwhile, the composite electrodes possess high mechanical stability (10,000 bending cycles), thermal stability, and environmental adaptability (60 °C and 85 ± 3% humidity for 700 h). The versatile composite FTEs show great potential applications in organic light-emitting diodes and pressure sensors, which exhibit high performance, mechanical stability, and environmental adaptability. Our strategy of introducing biocompatible materials into metallic nanowires opens up new possibilities to achieve high-quality FTEs in a simple and eco-friendly way.

Highly Stable Silver Nanowires/Biomaterial Transparent Electrodes for Flexible Electronics.

Many quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) utilize ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) as an electron injection layer (EIL). However, the use of the ZnO NP EIL material often results in a charge imbalance within the quantum dot (QD) emitting layer (EML) and exciton quenching at the interface of the QD EML and ZnO NP EIL. To overcome these challenges, we introduced an arginine (Arg) interlayer (IL) onto the ZnO NP EIL. The Arg IL elevated the work function of ZnO NPs, thereby suppressing electron injection into the QD, leading to an improved charge balance within the QDs. Additionally, the inherent insulating nature of the Arg IL prevented direct contact between QDs and ZnO NPs, reducing exciton quenching and consequently improving device efficiency. An inverted QLED (IQLED) utilizing a 20 nm-thick Arg IL on the ZnO NP EIL exhibited a 2.22-fold increase in current efficiency and a 2.28-fold increase in external quantum efficiency (EQE) compared to an IQLED without an IL. Likewise, the IQLED with a 20 nm-thick Arg IL on the ZnO NP EIL demonstrated a 1.34-fold improvement in current efficiency and a 1.36-fold increase in EQE compared to the IQLED with a 5 nm-thick polyethylenimine IL on ZnO NPs.

Enhancing Efficiency in Inverted Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Diodes through Arginine-Modified ZnO Nanoparticle Electron Injection Layer

Herein, this paper reports a simple and label-free photoelectrochemical (PEC) sensor based on the organic semiconducting conjugated polymer-polyfluorene derivative, poly[(9,9-dioctylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl)-co-(6-{4-ethyl-piperazin-1-yl}-2-phenyl-benzo{de}isoquinoline-1,3-dione)] (PFNA). The PFNA was designed and obtained the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO)/highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) values via spectral characterizations. The PFNA modified electrode produced a stable and enhanced photocurrent signal under white light irradiation at a bias of −0.1 V in phosphate buffer solution. A sensitive increment of the photocurrent was observed with the addition of p-phenylenediamine (p-PD). A possible mechanism for this photoelectrochemical process including the photoexcitation of the polymer, electron injection from polymer toward the electrode, and the hole-scavenging process by the reductants were studied. The π bond in the polymer might facilitate the photoelectrochemical process owing to the enhanced electronic coupling between the polymer and the reductants. A PEC analysis on p-PD has been carried out to evaluate the photoelectrochemical performances of the modified electrode, which presents the wide linear ranges of 0.2–400 μM, with a lower detection limit of 0.13 μM. This work reports the PEC performance of organic semiconducting conjugated polymer-polyfluorene derivative, which would promote more efficient photoelectrochemical design of sensors and devices. 

Rational design of semiconducting polymer poly[(9,9-dioctylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl)-co-(6-{4-ethyl-piperazin-1-yl}-2-phenyl-benzo{de}isoquinoline-1,3-dione)] for highly selective photoelectrochemical assay of p-phenylenediamine

In this paper, a tactile sensor based on ZnO nanorods was fabricated and characterized.A silicon and a polyamide substrate were utilized to achieve both a rigid and a flexible sensor.The ZnO nanorods was achieved using hydrothermal technique.The size and shape of the nanorods were recognized by the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).An interesting hexagonal cross section shape were achieved, which is very sensitive to the external pressure.An elevation in the detector output current was measured as the pressure applied to the detector.Two tests were applied to the sensor, first, a horizontal pressure and second, a bending pressure with several bending angles.The time response was graphed for both cases.Furthermore, the effect of oxygen plasma on the nanorods structure was analyzed by the SEM, Raman spectroscope and nanometer. 

Towards a Practical Powerless ZnO Nanorods Touch Sensor Fabricated on a Silicon and a Flexible Polyamide Substrate

Inverted organic light-emitting diodes (IOLEDs) can be integrated with low-cost n-channel thin-film transistors for use in active-matrix OLEDs (AMOLEDs). However, the electron injection from conventional indium tin oxide (ITO) cathode to the upper electron transport layer usually suffers from a large injection barrier. To improve the electron injection efficiency, the electron injection layers (EILs) of ZnO modified by a self-assembled monolayer arginine (Arg) were developed to construct efficient IOLEDs. ZnO/Arg EILs present an ultralow work function (WF) of 2.35 eV, which is lower than that of ZnO modified by poly(ethylenimine) (PEI) (2.77 eV). The mechanism of low WF is attributed to the generation of strong molecular dipoles and interface dipoles at the interface of ZnO/Arg. The green fluorescent IOLEDs with ZnO/Arg present a low turn-on voltage (Von) of 3.5 V and a maximum current efficiency (CEmax) of 4.5 cd/A. Especially, the device possesses a half-life of 3600 h at an initial luminance of 1700 cd/m2, which is 36 times as long as that of the IOLEDs with ZnO/PEI as EILs. Furthermore, the green phosphorescent IOLEDs show a Von of 3.5 V, a CEmax of 59.1 cd/A, and a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQEmax) of 16.8%. At a luminance of 10 000 cd/m2, the efficiency roll-off of the device is only 6.3%.

Highly Efficient Inverted Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Adopting a Self-Assembled Modification Layer.

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Highly Efficient Inverted Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Adopting a Self-Assembled Modification Layer.