Processing–Structure–Performance Relationship in Organic Transistors: Experiments and Model

In this paper, organic thin film transistors with different configurations are fabricated, and the effect on their performance when tailoring the semiconductor/insulator and semiconductor/contact interfaces through suitable treatments is analyzed. It is shown that the admittance spectroscopy used together with a properly developed electrical model turns out to be a particularly appropriate technique for correlating the performance of devices based on new materials in the manufacturing methods. The model proposed here to describe the equivalent metal–insulator–semiconductor (MIS) capacitor enables the extraction of a wide range of parameters and the study of the physical phenomena occurring in the transistors: diffusion of mobile ions through the insulator, charge trapping at the interfaces, dispersive transport in the semiconductor, and charge injection at the metal contacts. This is necessary to improve performance and stability in the case, like this one, of a novel organic semiconductor being employed. Atomic force microscopy images are also exploited to support the relationship between the semiconductor morphology and the electrical parameters.

Highly Stable Nonhydroxyl Antisolvent Polymer Dielectric: A New Strategy towards High-Performance Low-Temperature Solution-Processed Ultraflexible Organic Transistors for Skin-Inspired Electronics

Scarcity of the antisolvent polymer dielectrics and their poor stability have significantly prevented solution-processed ultraflexible organic transistors from low-temperature, large-scale production for applications in low-cost skin-inspired electronics. Here, we present a novel low-temperature solution-processed PEI-EP polymer dielectric with dramatically enhanced thermal stability, humidity stability, and frequency stability compared with the conventional PVA/c-PVA and c-PVP dielectrics, by incorporating polyethyleneimine PEI as crosslinking sites in nonhydroxyl epoxy EP. The PEI-EP dielectric requires a very low process temperature as low as 70°C and simultaneously possesses the high initial decomposition temperature (340°C) and glass transition temperature (230°C), humidity-resistant dielectric properties, and frequency-independent capacitance. Integrated into the solution-processed C8-BTBT thin-film transistors, the PEI-EP dielectric enables the device stable operation in air within 2 months and in high-humidity environment from 20 to 100% without significant performance degradation. The PEI-EP dielectric transistor array also presents weak hysteresis transfer characteristics, excellent electrical performance with 100% operation rate, high mobility up to 7.98 cm2 V-1 s-1 (1 Hz) and average mobility as high as 5.3 cm2 V-1 s-1 (1 Hz), excellent flexibility with the normal operation at the bending radius down to 0.003 mm, and foldable and crumpling-resistant capability. These results reveal the great potential of PEI-EP polymer as dielectric of low-temperature solution-processed ultraflexible organic transistors and open a new strategy for the development and applications of next-generation low-cost skin electronics.

Performance Improvement in single-gate organic transistors with contacts at top and bottom: Additional p + region insertion near source and drain

This research explores performance attributes of bottom gate top contact (BGTC) and bottom gate bottom contact (BGBC) organic thin film transistors (OTFT). To upgrade the performance characteristics, a region of 5nm with high concentration of carrier is tallied neighboring contacts. The drain current for BGTC is –18.6μ A as compared to –5.1μ A of BGBC transistor. Also, it is established that the innate attributes of BGTC are better than those of their counterparts, which is typically considered because of the inadequate contact attributes and mediocre semiconductor quality of BGBC OTFT. The analysis showed that upon varying the length of the channel ranging from 5μm to 40μm, there was a significant change in the drain current of BGTC and BGBC devices. For the same values of V GS and V DS (0V to –5V) where drain current in BGTC structure varied from –129.86μ A to –13.69μ A, whereas for their counterparts it ranged from –37.10μ A to –3.76μ A for channel length equal to 5μ m and 40μ m respectively. Also, with the varying doping strength ranging from 1012 cm–3 to 1016 cm–3 for BGBC device, drain current varied from –2.15μ A to –18.52μ A for BGTC whereas for BGBC it varied from –0.19μ A to –7.09μ A keeping V GS and V DS –5 V, yielding that upon varying the doping strength, where for BGTC I D changed by a factor of 8.6, the BGBC device showed a considerable change by a factor of 37.3. Likewise, mobility, threshold voltage, sub-threshold swing and transconductance also showing better performance with the P + insertion. These variations in the innate attributes are primarily due to the deficiency of carriers at the interface of source and channel, leading to a greater drop in the potential, which is more prominent for the bottom gate bottom contact devices.