D. J. Gundlach

Stacked pentacene layer organic thin-film transistors with improved characteristics

Using two layers of pentacene deposited at different substrate temperatures as the active material, we have fabricated photolithographically defined organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) with improved field-effect mobility and subthreshold slope. These devices use photolithographically defined gold source and drain electrodes and octadecyltrichlorosilane-treated silicon dioxide gate dielectric. The devices have field-effect mobility as large as 1.5 cm/sup 2//V-s, on/off current ratio larger than 10/sup 8/, near zero threshold voltage, and subthreshold slope less than 1.6 V per decade. To our knowledge, this is the largest field-effect mobility and smallest subthreshold slope yet reported for any organic transistor, and the first time both of these important characteristics have been obtained for a single device.

Organic thin-film transistor-driven polymer-dispersed liquid crystal displays on flexible polymeric substrates

We have fabricated organic thin-film transistor (OTFT)-driven active matrix liquid crystal displays on flexible polymeric substrates. These small displays have 16×16u2009pixel polymer-dispersed liquid crystal arrays addressed by pentacene active layer OTFTs. The displays were fabricated using a low-temperature process (<110u200a°C) on flexible polyethylene naphthalate film and are operated as reflective active matrix displays.

Temperature-independent transport in high-mobility pentacene transistors

The charge-carrier transport mechanism in the organic semiconductor pentacene is explored using thin-film transistor structures. The variation of the field-effect mobility with temperature differs from sample to sample, ranging from thermally activated to temperature-independent behavior. This result excludes thermally activated hopping as the fundamental transport mechanism in pentacene thin films, and suggests that traps and/or contact effects may strongly influence the observed characteristics. These results also indicate that field-effect transistors may not be appropriate vehicles for illuminating basic transport mechanisms in organic materials.

Pentacene organic thin-film transistors-molecular ordering and mobility

Pentacene-based organic thin-film transistors (TFTs) with field-effect mobility as large as 0.7 cm/sup 2//V/spl middot/s and on/off current ratio larger than 10/sup 8/ have been fabricated. Pentacene films deposited by evaporation at elevated temperature at low-to-moderate deposition rates have a high degree of molecular ordering with micrometer-sized and larger dendritic grains. Such films yield TFTs with large mobility. Films deposited at low temperature or by flash evaporation have small grains and poor molecular ordering and yield TFTs with low mobility.

An experimental study of contact effects in organic thin film transistors

We report on parasitic contact effects in organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) fabricated with pentacene films. The influence on the OTFT performance of the source and drain contact metal and the device design was investigated. Top contact (TC) and bottom contact (BC) gated transmission line model (gated-TLM) test structures were used to extract the combined parasitic contact resistance as a function of gate voltage swing and drain-source voltage for OTFTs with gold source and drain contacts. For comparison BC test structures with palladium contacts were studied. Differences in the bias dependence of the contact resistance for TC and BC OTFTs indicate that charge injection and device performance are strongly affected by the device design and processing. The results from this investigation show that TC and BC device performances may be contact limited for high mobility OTFTs with channel lengths less than 10μm.

Contact resistance extraction in pentacene thin film transistors

Abstract We report on the contact resistances for pentacene thin film transistors with two different designs: top and bottom contact configurations (referred to as TC and BC TFTs, respectively) for two different contact metals (gold and palladium). The extraction was done based on the dependencies of the channel resistances on the gate length and gate voltage. The extracted gold TC TFT contact resistance depends on VGS, but shows no dependence on the drain bias. The TC TFT contact resistance is comparable to or exceeds the channel resistance for channels shorter than approximately 10 μm. The contact resistance of BC TFTs depends both on gate and drain bias. We propose a circuit simulating the BC TFT contact resistance and verify the circuit applicability by extracting and comparing the TFT channel resistances at different drain voltages. Our results reveal an important role played by contact resistances and provide an accurate model of the contact phenomena suitable for implementation in Spice or other circuit simulators.

Modeling of organic thin film transistors of different designs

We report on modeling of direct current (DC) characteristics of organic pentacene thin film transistors of different designs. Our model incorporates a gate-voltage dependent mobility and highly nonlinear drain and source contact series resistances. The contact nonlinearities are especially pronounced in bottom source and drain contact thin film transistors. The model successfully reproduced both below- and above-threshold characteristics of top source and drain contact and bottom source and drain contact organic pentacene thin film transistors.

Analog and digital circuits using organic thin-film transistors on polyester substrates

We have fabricated and characterized analog and digital circuits using organic thin-film transistors on polyester film substrates. These are the first reported dynamic results for organic circuits fabricated on polyester substrates. The high-performance pentacene transistors yield circuits with the highest reported clock frequencies for organic circuits.

Solvent-induced phase transition in thermally evaporated pentacene films

We report a solvent-induced phase transition in pentacene thin films, from a “thin film” phase to a bulk-like phase. X-ray diffraction indicates that as-deposited thermally evaporated pentacene films consist mainly of (001)-oriented pentacene with an elongated (001) plane spacing of 15.5±0.1u200aA, and a minor amount with a (001) plane spacing of 14.5±0.1u200aA. When such films are exposed to solvents such as acetone, isopropanol, or ethanol, the plane spacing of the entire layer shifts abruptly from the elongated (001) plane spacing to the bulk value and this shift is accompanied by a macroscopic change in film morphology. While molecular ordering is maintained as indicated by x-ray diffraction, thin film transistor performance is severely degraded, most likely as a result of the morphological changes in the film.

Pentacene TFT with improved linear region characteristics using chemically modified source and drain electrodes

We have fabricated pentacene active layer organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) using chemically-modified source and drain contacts with improved contact and linear region characteristics. OTFTs fabricated on heavily doped, thermally oxidized single-crystal silicon substrates have linear field-effect mobility greater than 0.5 cm/sup 2//V-s at a drain-source voltage of -0.1 V, on/off current ratio greater than 10/sup 7/, and subthreshold slope as low as 0.7 V/decade.