Air-flow navigated crystal growth for TIPS pentacene-based organic thin-film transistors

6,13-Bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)pentacene (TIPS pentacene) is a promising active channel material of organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) due to its solubility, stability, and high mobility. However, the growth of TIPS pentacene crystals is intrinsically anisotropic and thus leads to significant variation in the performance of OTFTs. In this paper, air flow is utilized to effectively improve the TIPS pentacene crystal orientation and enhance performance consistency in OTFTs, and the resulted films are examined with optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and thin-film transistor measurements. Under air-flow navigation (AFN), TIPS pentacene drop-cast from toluene solution has been observed to form thin films with improved crystal orientation and increased areal coverage on substrates, which subsequently lead to a fourfold increase of average hole mobility and one order of magnitude enhancement in performance consistency defined by the ratio of average mobility to the standard deviation of the field-effect mobilities.