Ms. Salma Lahwani - M.Sc. Candidate
08/11/2026
אודיטוריום ע"ש דויד וואנג, בניין מידן, קומה 3
13:30
Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are promising platforms for bioelectronics because their unique ionic-electronic coupling allows seamless bridging between biological and electronic systems, providing ultrahigh signal amplification at low operating voltages, alongside biocompatibility and mechanical flexibility. The channel of OECTs is composed of organic mixed ionic-electronic conductors (OMIECs) that are generally processed from hazardous and/or toxic organic solvents such as chloroform. Hence, efforts are invested in finding alternative “green” solvents that will allow safe and large-scale production of OECTs. In this work, we investigated Cyrene, a safe, non-toxic solvent derived from waste cellulose or non-food biomass, as an alternative solvent for OECTs. To confirm the generality of the solvent for variety of OECT materials, we processed both unipolar (p-type or n-type) and blend-based ambipolar OECTs, and compared the performances to devices processed from chloroform. The results show that solvent-polymer interactions and solvent removal rate strongly affect the morphology and microstructure of the channel and hence device performance. More specifically, we find that slower solvent removal does not necessarily promote improved crystallinity and that retained solvent molecules can contribute to ion transport. These findings highlight the critical role of solvent-dependent processing in controlling the molecular ordering, mixing and phase separation, providing valuable insights for optimizing green-solvent processing strategies and developing more sustainable unipolar and ambipolar OECTs for bioelectronic applications.