Organic Reprogrammable Circuits Based on Electrochemically Formed Diodes

We report a method to construct reprogrammable circuits based on organic electrochemical (EC) p-n junction diodes. The diodes are built up from the combination of the organic conjugated polymer poly[2-methoxy-5-(2-ethylhexyloxy) -1,4-phenylenevinylene] and a polymer electrolyte. The p-n diodes are defined by EC doping performed at 70 °C, and then stabilized at -30 °C. The reversible EC reaction allows for in situ reprogramming of the polarity of the organic p-n junction, thus enabling us to reconfigure diode circuits. By combining diodes of specific polarities dedicated circuits have been created, such as various logic gates, a voltage limiter and an AC/DC converter. Reversing the EC reaction allows in situ reprogramming of the p-n junction polarity, thus enabling reconfiguration of diode circuits, for example, from an AND gate to an OR gate. The reprogrammable circuits are based on p-n diodes defined from only two layers, the electrodes and then the active semiconductor:electrolyte composite material. Such simple device structures are promising for large-area and fully printed reconfigurable circuits manufactured using common printing tools. The structure of the reported p-n diodes mimics the architecture of and is based on identical materials used to construct light-emitting electrochemical cells (LEC). Our findings thus provide a robust signal routing technology that is easily integrated with traditional LECs. © 2014 American Chemical Society.