Thermal Inkjet Printing of Copper Tetrasulfonated Phthalocyanine ( CuTsPc ) as a Semiconducting Layer on Flexible MIS Capacitors

Organic materials have been studied for years as active compounds for many electronic purposes as the fabrication of field-effect transistors (OFETs)1-3, photovoltaics (OPVs)46, sensors7-10, memories11-13, radio-frequency identification tags (RFIDs)14,15 and light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)16-18. Such applications become even more interesting when solution-processed organic materials are used to produce low-cost and flexible devices, which can be achieved by printing techniques, for instance19-21. However, to succeed in the printing of organic devices with suitable electrical characteristics, the development of strategies to improve material properties is extremely important20,22. Previously, we demonstrated an ink formulation to print aqueousinsoluble polyaniline (PANI) using a commercial thermal desktop printer22. In that approach the use of organic solvents (viz. N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, ethylene glycol and isopropanol) with ultrapure water allowed the formulation and printing of PANI solution similarly to the preparation and printing of standard inks for commercial printers. In the literature other strategies reporting ink formulation of different materials for thermal inkjet (TIJ) printing can also be found23-26. TIJ printing is an attractive method that exhibits advantages such as accurate droplet positioning, minimal waste production, reasonable printing speeds and compatibility with different flexible substrates and materials21,22. Additionally, the use of commercial desktop printers is very versatile for rapid device prototyping and patterning at real low-cost production20-22. The TIJ technique, however, requires the use of water-based materials (inks) with very specific properties such as appropriate viscosity (ca. 2.5 mPas), surface tension (ca. 33 mN m–1) and boiling point (ca. 90–95 °C)21,22. Thus, the fine tuning of material properties is mandatory to fulfill these particular characteristics, which can be achieved through the formulation and modification of standard materials. In this context, water-soluble organic semiconductors (OSC), especially phthalocyanine molecules containing sulfonate groups, can be a very attractive candidate for organic electronic devices produced by TIJ printing. Sulfonated-substituted phthalocyanines have been exploited mainly in OFETs27-29 and OPVs4-6,30. Regarding OFETs, Locklin et al.27 have produced devices with ambipolar-like behavior using the layer-by-layer (LbL) technique to assemble thin films of cationic and anionic copper phthalocyanine derivatives. They have shown charge carrier mobilities in the range of 10–4 to 10–6 cm2 V–1 s–1 for both pand n-type channels depending the fabrication conditions27. Chaidogiannos et al.28 have verified charge carrier mobilities of approximately 0.2 cm2 V–1 s–1 for cobalt tetrasulfonated phthalocyanine (CoTsPc)-based spincoated devices whereas non-substituted counterparts have shown Thermal Inkjet Printing of Copper Tetrasulfonated Phthalocyanine (CuTsPc) as a Semiconducting Layer on Flexible MIS Capacitors


Introduction
Organic materials have been studied for years as active compounds for many electronic purposes as the fabrication of field-effect transistors (OFETs) [1][2][3] , photovoltaics (OPVs) 4- 6 , sensors [7][8][9][10] , memories [11][12][13] , radio-frequency identification tags (RFIDs) 14,15 and light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) [16][17][18] .Such applications become even more interesting when solution-processed organic materials are used to produce low-cost and flexible devices, which can be achieved by printing techniques, for instance [19][20][21] .However, to succeed in the printing of organic devices with suitable electrical characteristics, the development of strategies to improve material properties is extremely important 20,22 .Previously, we demonstrated an ink formulation to print aqueousinsoluble polyaniline (PANI) using a commercial thermal desktop printer 22 .In that approach the use of organic solvents (viz.N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, ethylene glycol and isopropanol) with ultrapure water allowed the formulation and printing of PANI solution similarly to the preparation and printing of standard inks for commercial printers.In the literature other strategies reporting ink formulation of different materials for thermal inkjet (TIJ) printing can also be found [23][24][25][26] .
TIJ printing is an attractive method that exhibits advantages such as accurate droplet positioning, minimal waste production, reasonable printing speeds and compatibility with different flexible substrates and materials 21,22 .Additionally, the use of commercial desktop printers is very versatile for rapid device prototyping and patterning at real low-cost production [20][21][22] .The TIJ technique, however, requires the use of water-based materials (inks) with very specific properties such as appropriate viscosity (ca.2.5 mPas), surface tension (ca.33 mN m -1 ) and boiling point (ca.90-95 °C) 21,22 .Thus, the fine tuning of material properties is mandatory to fulfill these particular characteristics, which can be achieved through the formulation and modification of standard materials.In this context, water-soluble organic semiconductors (OSC), especially phthalocyanine molecules containing sulfonate groups, can be a very attractive candidate for organic electronic devices produced by TIJ printing.
Sulfonated-substituted phthalocyanines have been exploited mainly in OFETs [27][28][29] and OPVs [4][5][6]30 . Regrding OFETs, Locklin et al. 27 have produced devices with ambipolar-like behavior using the layer-by-layer (LbL) technique to assemble thin films of cationic and anionic copper phthalocyanine derivatives.They have shown charge carrier mobilities in the range of 10 -4 to 10 -6 cm 2 V -1 s -1 for both p-and n-type channels depending the fabrication conditions 27 . Chidogiannos et al. 28 have verified charge carrier mobilities of approximately 0.2 cm 2 V -1 s -1 for cobalt tetrasulfonated phthalocyanine (CoTsPc)-based spincoated devices whereas non-substituted counterparts have shown Thermal Inkjet Printing of Copper Tetrasulfonated Phthalocyanine (CuTsPc) as a Semiconducting Layer on Flexible MIS Capacitors mobilities of 10 -4 cm 2 V -1 s -1 .According to the authors, the device field-effect mobility is controlled by the presence of Na + which depends on the degree of sulfonation of the CuTsPc molecule 28 .In OPVs, sulfonated-substituted phthalocyanine has been used as an interlayer between indium-tin oxide (ITO) electrodes and photoactive polymer blends 30 as well as a donor layer in fullerene-based devices 4 .Benten et al. 6 used LbL method to exploit the characteristics of copper tetrasulfonated phthalocyanine (CuTsPc) in order to obtain power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of 0.01% and open-circuit voltages (V OC ) of approximately 0.4 V, whereas Schumann et al. 4 obtained PCE of 0.32% and V OC of 0.6 V for spincoated CuTsPc-based devices.According to Schumann and co-workers such improved characteristics on CuTsPc OPVs arise from the presence of sulfonic acid substituents on the phthalocyanine.
All the mentioned examples about the use of watersoluble phthalocyanines on electronic devices rely on different fabrication techniques such as LbL 6,27 , electrodeposition 5 and spincoating 4,28,30 .However, to the best of our knowledge, the TIJ deposition of sulfonatesubstituted phthalocyanines has not been demonstrated yet for such purposes.To address information about the feasibility of TIJ printed electronic devices, flexible metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) capacitors based on copper tetrasulfonated phthalocyanine (CuTsPc) and anodic aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3 ) were fabricated.The MIS capacitor is the core of OFETs and a powerful tool for electrical characterization of OSC, dielectrics and interfaces [31][32][33][34][35][36] .Its simple structure and versatility allow the extraction of several semiconductor parameters such as conductivity, charge carrier mobility and doping density [31][32][33][34][35] .Here, the electrical properties of CuTsPc/Al 2 O 3 MIS capacitors prepared onto flexible aluminum (Al)-coated Teflon  substrates were investigated.To provide uniformity to CuTsPc printed films, poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) was used as a plasticizer.Atomic force microscopy and impedance spectroscopy measurements were used to characterize the individual materials and the MIS device.Finally, the charge carrier mobility, μ, and doping density, N A , were calculated for the CuTsPc+PVA-based device.
The CuTsPc+PVA films were printed using a Hewlett-Packard (HP) thermal desktop printer (model 2460) whereas the anodization of Al-coated substrates was carried out using Keithley 2420 source-meter unit in a home-made electrochemical cell.Gold top electrodes (70 nm-thick, area of 2×10 -6 m 2 ) were thermally deposited onto all samples through a shadow mask using an Edwards Auto 306 system.
The samples were electrically characterized by impedance spectroscopy using a frequency response analyzer (Solartron model 1260) coupled to a dielectric interface (model 1296).Morphological investigations were carried out by atomic force microscopy (AFM) using a Nanosurf equipment (model EasyScan 2) and TAP 190 Al-G probes.

CuTsPc+PVA ink preparation and printing
To print CuTsPc+PVA films a solution containing 100 mg of CuTsPc (powder) and 2.5 mg of PVA (powder) was prepared in 5 ml ultrapure water (Millipor Milli Q system).The addition of PVA as a plasticizer is necessary to provide homogeneity to the CuTsPc film.The CuTsPc+PVA ink was sonicated for 30 min at room temperature and carefully filtered using a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) syringe filter (pore size of 0.45 mm) immediately before the printing procedure.To receive the CuTsPc+PVA ink, the printer cartridge (HP number 21) was opened and cleaned with n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), isopropyl alcohol and deionized water (1:1:1 v:v:v) and left in ultrasonic bath for 20 min to remove all residues.
The samples were designed using Microsoft Word  software.The printing parameters were set to RGB (0,0,0) at the lowest speed and maximum printing quality, which means the largest number of pixels per inch that can be achieved by the printer.The CuTsPc+PVA films were printed onto bare and Al 2 O 3 -coated aluminized Teflon  substrates for the CuTsPc+PVA electrical characterization and MIS capacitor fabrication, respectively.

Anodization of aluminized Teflon  substrates
Anodic Al 2 O 3 was used as the dielectric layer on MIS capacitors containing CuTsPc+PVA as the semiconducting material.The Al 2 O 3 dielectric layer was produced by the anodization of the thin Al coverage of Teflon  using constant electrical currents.This method allows the obtainment of barrier-type Al 2 O 3 films with nanometric thicknesses and excellent insulating properties for organic electronic devices 37 .The electric field between two electrodes (viz.Al and Au) immersed in a proper solution allows O 2-ions from the electrolyte to reach the Al electrode surface and react with Al 3+ ions to form Al 2 O 3 according to the Equation 1 38 : During the oxide growth, the system electrical resistance increases due to the Al 2 O 3 insulating properties.To keep constant the electrical current flowing between the electrodes, a corresponding increase of voltage is required.This results in a compromise between the oxide layer thickness, d ox , and the applied potential, V, described by the Equation 2 37 : whereas f is called anodization factor and can vary depending the experimental conditions for the oxide growth 37 .Here, 20 nm-thick Al 2 O 3 films were produced in a home-made electrochemical cell containing 30 mmol L -1 electrolytic solution of tartaric acid, ethylene glycol and water.The electrolyte pH was adjusted to 6.0 using low-concentrated ammonium hydroxide solution.The use of tartaric acid at pH values 6.0 -7.0 is known to allow the formation of barrier-type Al 2 O 3 films with good dielectric properties 37 .
The following protocol was used for the oxide fabrication: i) a constant current of 250 µA cm -2 was applied between the Al-coated Teflon  and the Au electrode and ii) the electrical potential was held at the final voltage for 2 min to improve the oxide uniformity.

Sample morphological and electrical characterization
Three different samples were produced to investigate the electrical and morphological properties of involved materials.These include sandwich-like structures of i) thermally deposited Au electrodes onto anodized Al-coated Teflon  substrates (Au/Al 2 O 3 /Al-Teflon  ); ii) thermally deposited Au electrodes onto CuTsPc+PVA films printed on Al-coated Teflon  (Au/CuTsPc+PVA/Al-Teflon  ) and iii) MIS capacitor (Au/CuTsPc+PVA/Al 2 O 3 /Al-Teflon  ), as depicted in Figure 1.
After fabrication the samples were annealed at 100 °C for 1h in vacuum to remove oxygen and water traces.AFM images were acquired in tapping mode, scanned area of 10×10 mm and analyzed using Gwyddion 2.31 software.The roughness of each sample was calculated averaging the root-mean-squared roughness of 8 regions (2x2 μm) within every image.For the electrical characterization, impedance spectroscopy measurements were carried out in moderate vacuum (approximately 10 -1 Torr) and at room temperature.Capacitance and dielectric loss curves were obtained as a function of frequency and DC bias considering AC amplitude of 100 mV.

Morphological characterization
Morphological characteristics of bare Al-coated Teflon  substrates, anodic Al 2 O 3 layer and printed CuTsPC+PVA film were investigated by AFM and are shown in Figures 2a, 2b and 2c, respectively.
The Figure 2a revealed an entangled fiber-like morphology of the bare Al-coated Teflon  substrate with an average roughness of (15 ± 2) nm, whereas the anodized Al 2 O 3 film exhibited some corrugation coupled with smaller globular features on its surface (Figure 2b).These morphological characteristics resulted in roughness values as high as (29 ± 5) nm which can be the cause of charge traps suggested from the capacitance-frequency curve for the Al/ Al 2 O 3 /Al-Teflon  structure (Figure 3).Printed CuTsPc+PVA films showed some agglomeration, as depicted in Figure 2c, with roughness values of approximately (17 ± 4) nm.

AC electrical characterization of printed
CuTsPc+PVA films Figure 4 depicts the capacitance and loss curves of printed CuTsPc+PVA films onto Al-coated Teflon  substrates.Here, the frequency was swept starting from very low values (10 -2 Hz) in order to investigate the occurrence of typical low-frequency response of Na + ions from CuTsPc sulfonate moiety.A sharp decrease of capacitance values (black line) is observed in the range of 10 -2 Hz to 10 2 Hz, reaching a constant behavior at higher frequencies.From these values the CuTsPc film thickness was estimated to be about 110 nm, considering 3 for the CuTsPc dielectric constant 40 .For this estimative, the contribution of PVA was not taken into account.The loss curve (blue line) revealed a relaxation peak (known as Maxwell-Wagner relaxation) at approximately 10 Hz.This is the classical electrical behavior of a capacitor with a two different dielectric layer 34,36 .
Here, however, no experimental evidences that CuTsPc and PVA form discrete phases could be obtained, as shown in Figure 2c for AFM measurements, for example.From Figure 4 it is also observed that the loss values are higher at very low frequencies (ca. 10 -2 Hz), which suggest the existence of an ionic diffusion mechanism of the Na + ions from CuTsPc within the printed film.

AC electrical characterization of flexible MIS capacitors
Once the electrical properties of the anodic Al 2 O 3 layer and the printed CuTsPc+PVA film were evaluated, the response of CuTsPc+PVA/Al 2 O 3 MIS capacitors were investigated.Figures 5a and 5b show, respectively, the device capacitance and loss curves as function of frequency for different DC voltages.The observed capacitance variations with frequency indicate the existence of accumulation and depletion regimes as expected for a MIS device [31][32][33][34][35] .On the loss plot, Maxwell-Wagner relaxation peaks are clearly present at around 1 Hz for different applied bias.
It is worth mentioning that CuTsPc+PVA printed film occupies an area close to the top Au electrode one, thus lateral currents are expected to be negligible in this device.Therefore, the capacitance increase observed at low   frequencies (below 10 -1 Hz) and its respective loss response can be attributed to the Na + conduction as discussed for the CuTsPc+PVA film.These capacitance and loss curves for the MIS device can be modeled using the equivalent electrical circuit shown in Figure 6.
The equivalent circuit is proposed considering: i) within the CuTsPc+PVA film there is 2.5% w/w of insulating PVA, which can cause an increase of the effective insulator thickness, therefore, the existence of a capacitance, C P , in series to the oxide capacitance, C O , should be taken into account; ii) there is a Maxwell-Wagner relaxation process due to the field-effect in the CuTsPc film in which the intensity varies with the DC bias and this effect is represented by C T in parallel with R T ; iii) C D and R D account to the relaxation mechanism and the ionic diffusion processes in the CuTsPc+PVA films, occurring at low frequencies.
Figure 7 shows the experimental and simulated capacitance and dielectric loss curves for the MIS device.The experimental curve was obtained at accumulation regime (-3 V).The simulations were performed using Zview  software and the proposed electrical circuit.
The simulation was generated considering C O = 8.8 nF, that corresponds to a 20 nm-thick Al 2 O 3 film calculated from Figure 3.The C P value (36 nF) was obtained considering the following approximation: as 2.5% w/w PVA within CuTsPc is present, it was considered that PVA could form a continuous insulating film as thick as 2.5% of the CuTsPc+PVA total thickness calculated from capacitancefrequency curve in Figure 5a.The R T and C T values were obtained from Maxwell-Wagner peak using ωτ = 1 and the Equation 332 : The C D e R D values were defined taking as guideline the results shown in Figures 5a and 5b, from where the conductivity was estimated as 5.9 x10 -9 S/m.It is important   to address that the equivalent circuit analysis is not a proper fit, but a qualitative general description of the device electrical behavior in which the proposed circuit seems to be appropriated.Although such behavior agrees with the model, more conclusive studies would be necessary in order to understand the overall electrical processes, mainly those at low frequencies.Here, the most important aspect is despite the ionic diffusion process that occurs in the MIS response, as clarified by the electrical circuit representation, the typical field-effect behavior of MIS capacitors still present, as shown in Figure 8 for the device capacitance-voltage curve.
The main characteristic of MIS capacitors is that capacitance varies with DC bias [31][32][33][34][35] .The Figure 8 shows the capacitance-voltage curve for the CuTsPc+PVA/Al 2 O 3 MIS device performed at 0.1 Hz.This frequency is intermediary to both relaxations observed in Figure 5b, where there are not inherent low frequency effects represented by the branch containing C D and R D in the equivalent circuit.This is an important assumption because it allows the analysis of the single contribution of CuTsPc.For negative voltages (accumulation regime) the measured capacitance of 5.8 nF corresponds approximately to the values of C O e C P from the insulator equivalent capacitance.For positive voltages (depletion regime), the capacitance of approximately 1.9 nF suggests that the device does not reach the complete depletion, since its capacitance in this condition should correspond to 0.5 nF (Figure 7).Therefore, despite the low frequency relaxation originated from diffusions within the CuTsPc+PVA, it is also possible to observe the field-effect and the capacitance variation with voltage at 0.1 Hz, which allows the calculation of the CuTsPc parameters.
The CuTsPc charge carrier density, N A , was estimated to be 3.7x10 16  ( ) Additionally, from the Maxwell-Wagner relaxation frequency (Figure 5b) and using Equation 3, the conductivity and the mobility (µ) of the CuTsPc+PVA could be estimated as being 5.88x10 -7 S/cm and 1.22x10 -4 cm 2 V -1 s -1 , respectively.Here, although it was necessary to add PVA as plasticizer to provide uniformity to the CuTsPc printed film and, therefore, to guarantee a proper device operation, it is possible to obtain important parameters that characterize the semiconducting properties of CuTsPc.In this sense, new perspectives for this work include the replacement of PVA as a plasticizer matrix by conducting polymers or polyanions to promote the CuTsPc doping.This strategy might provide higher mobilities allowing the fabrication of thermally printed electronic devices with better electrical properties, as organic field-effect transistors, for instance.

Conclusion
The electrical characterization of printed CuTsPc films under two novel aspects, the successful thermal inkjet printing of CuTsPc onto a flexible Al 2 O 3 -coated substrate and the impedance spectroscopy study of the electrical properties of a CuTsPc-based MIS capacitor, is presented.Compact Al 2 O 3 films with suitable electrical properties and dielectric constant (~10) were obtained by anodization process.This method can be appropriate for the fabrication of devices in which ease-processed thin dielectrics are required.To fabricate CuTsPc-based MIS capacitor, PVA was added in the CuTsPc ink to give it uniformity and homogeneity during the printing procedure.The electrical characterization of the MIS capacitor revealed the occurrence of the accumulation and depletion regimes as well a well-defined Maxwell-Wagner relaxation process.However, the absence of a constant capacitance at the accumulation regime suggests some contribution from the ionic currents in the CuTsPc+PVA response.Additionally, from the equivalent circuit analysis and the capacitance-voltage curve, it was possible to obtain the conductivity, mobility and carrier density of the device.Finally, it is shown the possibility to produce flexible MIS devices based on CuTsPc using low-cost commercial printers for applications on electronic devices.Our results contribute to the comprehension of the electrical properties of printed OSC and demonstration of the efficiency of the TIJ technique to produce low-cost prototypes.The charge carrier density can be estimated from the region between -1 V and 1 V.

Figure 3 Figure 1 .
Figure 3 shows capacitance and tanδ curves (the latter corresponds to the dielectric loss/capacitance ratio) as a function of frequency for the 20 nm-thick Al 2 O 3 film anodized onto Al-Teflon  substrates.As frequency increases, the capacitance (black line) smoothly decreases reaching constant values in the range between 10 4 -10 5 Hz.This behavior suggests the presence of charge traps with different time responses at the Al 2 O 3 /Al interface as observed by

4
Hourdakis and Nassiopoulos for capacitors containing porous alumina layer39 .Subsidiary experiments revealed rather constant capacitance values for anodic Al 2 O 3 produced onto highly pure Al films thermally evaporated (data not shown).Thus, the traps on the Al/Al 2 O 3 can be related to the high roughness of the Al surface (15 ± 2 nm) and the Al 2 O 3 layer (29 ± 5 nm) or even to the presence of impurities on the Al film.The dielectric constant (ε OX ) of the Al 2 O 3 film was extract from the capacitance curve at approximately 10 Hz to avoid such contribution of traps obtaining ε OX = 10, which is in agreement with previously reported values for barrier-type anodic films 39 .The tanδ curve (blue line) exhibited values of 10 -2 , indicating an Al 2 O 3 film with good insulating characteristics.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Capacitance-frequency and tanδ-frequency plots for a 20 nm-thick anodic Al 2 O 3 layer measured in vacuum and at room temperature.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Capacitance-frequency and dielectric loss-frequency plots for CuTsPc+PVA film printed onto Al-coated PET substrates obtained in vacuum and at room temperature.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. a) Capacitance-frequency and b) dielectric loss-frequency plots at several DC bias for CuTsPc+PVA/Al 2 O 3 MIS capacitor obtained in vacuum and at room temperature.

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.Equivalent circuit proposed for the MIS device.C O , C P , C T stand, respectively, for the capacitances of Al 2 O 3 , PVA and CuTsPc layers.R T is the electrical resistance of CuTsPc and C M and R M are, respectively, the capacitance and resistance terms related to ionic diffusion processes.

Figure 7 .
Figure 7. Experimental (solid line) and simulated (dashed line) capacitance-frequency and dielectric loss-frequency curves for the MIS device.Simulated results were obtained using the Zview  software.
cm -3 from the slope on the capacitance-voltage plot using the Mott-Schottky relation as shown by the Equation 4 41 :

Figure 8 .
Figure 8. Capacitance-voltage plot at 0.1 Hz for the MIS device.The charge carrier density can be estimated from the region between -1 V and 1 V.