Investigation of Silk Fibroin Natural Protein as a Gate Dielectric in Flexible Organic Field-Effect Transistors

This work represents the extraction process of silk fibroin (SF) aqueous solution from silkworm cocoons and its utilization as a promising natural gate dielectric candidate in organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). SF was combined with a thin HfO<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> layer for the demonstration of high-performance flexible OFETs for -5 V operation. OFETs showed excellent p-channel transistor characteristics with a low threshold voltage of -0.38 (±0.20) V and a good on-off current ratio of~10<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup>. Moreover, decent electrical and bending stability were observed in these OFETs. These results indicate that SF can be further utilized as a suitable dielectric for exploration of flexible and eco-friendly OFETs.