Encyclopedia of Polymeric Nanomaterials

2015 Edition
| Editors: Shiro Kobayashi, Klaus Müllen

Polymers for Transistors

Reference work entry
First Online:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29648-2_13
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Synonyms

Organic field-effect transistor; Organic semiconductor; Plastic electronics

Definition

Polymer: A polymer is a macromolecule with high molecular mass and composed of the repetition of structural units of significantly lower molecular weights. Polymers often possess very different chemical and physical properties compared to the smaller molecules they are composed of.

Transistor: A transistor is a semiconducting device that is used to switch and amplify electronic signals. The electric current flows between two electrodes, source and drain, and is controlled by an electric field applied to a third electrode, the gate.

Historical Background

The field-effect transistor principle was first patented in 1925 by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld, but it would take nearly another quarter of a century until the first working field-effect transistor (FET) based on a germanium crystal was built at Bell Laboratories in 1948 by William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain. Since its...

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© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic ElectronicsImperial College London LondonUK