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Abstract

Networks of polymersorted semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) exhibit ideal properties for electrolyte-gated transistors, such as high charge carrier mobilities and a porous morphology. In combination with many electrolytes, such as ionic liquids, the porosity enables volumetric charge accumulation in these networks, comparable to ion-permeable polymers in electrochemical transistors (ECTs). However, the performance of polymer-wrapped SWNTs in water-gated transistors, which are an important component of bioelectronics, is limited by the hydrophobicity of commonly used wrapping-polymers. This limitation is overcome within this thesis by exchanging the hydrophobic wrapping-polymer with an equivalent polymer that features hydrophilic oligoethylene glycol side chains. High performance water-gated transistors with large volumetric capacitances are demonstrated, employing aerosol-jet printed hydrophilic polymer/SWNT hybrids. Furthermore, slow ionc motion in ion-gel-gated dense SWNT networks is studied and implemented as an approach to create artificial synapses, which show promising behavior for the development of neuromorphic devices. The properties of the presented prototypes suggest that future device generations should contain a mixed network of semiconducting and metallic SWNTs as the gating material and avoid all parasitic capacitances by passivation in order to obtain non-volatile device operation. These findings expand the applicability of solution processed SWNT networks for bioelectronics and brain-inspired computing.