Kelvin probe force microscopy and its application

Organic (opto)electronic materials have received considerable attention due to their applications in thin-film-transistors, light-emitting diodes, solar cells, sensors, photorefractive devices, and many others. The technological promises include low cost of these materials and the possibility of their room-temperature deposition from solution on large-area and/or flexible substrates. The article reviews the current understanding of the physical mechanisms that determine the (opto)electronic properties of high-performance organic materials. The focus of the review is on photoinduced processes and on electronic properties important for optoelectronic applications relying on charge carrier photogeneration. Additionally, it highlights the capabilities of various experimental techniques for characterization of these materials, summarizes top-of-the-line device performance, and outlines recent trends in the further development of the field. The properties of materials based both on small molecules and on conjug...

Organic Optoelectronic Materials: Mechanisms and Applications

In this article, the design paradigm involving molecular weight, alkyl substituents, and donor−acceptor interaction for the poly[2,6-(4,4-bis-alkyl-4H-cyclopenta[2,1-b;3,4-b′]-dithiophene)-alt-4,7-(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)] (cyclopentadithiophene−benzothiadiazole) donor−acceptor copolymer (CDT−BTZ) toward field-effect transistors (FETs) with ultrahigh mobilities is presented and discussed. It is shown that the molecular weight plays a key role in improving hole mobilities, reaching an exceptionally high value of up to 3.3 cm2 V−1 s−1. Possible explanations for this observation is highlighted in conjunction with thin film morphology and crystallinity. Hereby, it is found that the former does not change, whereas, at the same time, crystallinity improved with ever growing molecular weight. Furthermore, other important structural design factors such as alkyl chain substituents and donor−acceptor interaction between the polymer backbones potentially govern intermolecular stacking distances crucial for charge tr...

Ultrahigh Mobility in Polymer Field-Effect Transistors by Design

In this article, we review current understanding of the reliability of organic field-effect transistors, with a particular focus on degradation of device characteristics under bias stress conditions. We discuss the various factors that have been found to influence the operational stability of different material systems, including dependence on stress voltage and duty cycle, gate dielectric, environmental conditions, light exposure, and contact resistance. A key question concerns the role of extrinsic factors, such as oxidation or presence of moisture, and that of intrinsic factors, such as the inherent structural and electronic disorder that is present in thin organic semiconductor films. We also review current understanding of the microscopic defects that could play a role in charge trapping in organic semiconductors.

Reliability of Organic Field‐Effect Transistors

A record high OFET hole mobility, as high as 23.7 cm(2) /Vs, is achieved in macroscopic aligned semiconducting polymers. The high mobility is insensitive to the polymer molecular weight. Polymer chains are aligned along the fiber to facilitate intrachain charge transport.

https://physics.ucsd.edu/students/courses/fall2014/physics211a/specialtopic/transport.pdf

High‐Mobility Field‐Effect Transistors Fabricated with Macroscopic Aligned Semiconducting Polymers

A scanning Kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM) study of the surface potential of vacuum sublimed pentacene transistors under bias stress and its correlation with the film morphology is presented. While for thicker films there are some trapping centers inhomogeneously distributed over the film, as previously reported by other authors, by decreasing the film thickness the effect of thin intergrain regions (IGRs) becomes clear and a very good correlation between the topography and the potential data is observed. It is shown that in the thick pentacene grains the potential is homogeneous and independent of the gate bias applied with negligible charge trapping, while in the thin IGRs the potential varies with the applied gate bias, indicating that only an incomplete accumulation layer can be formed. Clear evidence for preferential charge trapping in the thin IGRs is obtained.

Charge Trapping in Intergrain Regions of Pentacene Thin Film Transistors

We investigate the growth and field-effect transistor performance of aligned pentacene thin films deposited by zone-casting from a solution of unsubstituted pentacene molecules in a chlorinated solvent. Polarized optical microscopy shows that solution processed pentacene films grow as large crystalline domains with pronounced anisotropy in the substrate plane, in contrast to vacuum sublimed pentacene films, which consist of small crystalline grains with random in-plane orientation. The high structural alignment is confirmed by in-plane and out-of-plane X-ray diffraction analysis, with out-of-plane 00n reflections up to at least the seventh order, and a pronounced in-plane anisotropy with the a-axis of the triclinic unit cell predominantly aligned parallel to the zone-casting direction and the ab-plane parallel to the substrate. The average charge carrier mobility of the zone-cast pentacene devices depends strongly on the underlying dielectric. Divinylsiloxane-bis-benzocyclobutene (BCB) resin is found to b...

High-Mobility Aligned Pentacene Films Grown by Zone-Casting

We have used scanning Kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM) as a local probe to study charge trapping in zone-cast pentacene field effect transistors on both SiO(2) and benzocyclobutene (BCB) substrates. Annealing at 130 degrees C was found to reduce the threshold voltage, susceptibility to negative gate bias stress and trapping of positive charges within single pentacene grains. We conclude that oxygen is able to penetrate and disassociatively incorporate into crystalline pentacene, chemically creating electrically active defect states. Screening of a positive gate bias caused by electron injection from Au into pentacene was directly observed with SKPM. The rate of screening was found to change significantly after annealing of the film and depended on the choice of gate dielectric.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0957-4484/20/2/025203/pdf

A scanning Kelvin probe study of charge trapping in zone-cast pentacene thin film transistors.

Trapped-charge-induced transformation of pentacene polymorphs is observed by using in situ Raman spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that the charge should be localized in pentacene molecules at the interface with static intermolecular disorder along the long axis. Quantum chemical calculations of the intermolecular transfer integrals suggest the disorder to be large enough to induce Anderson-type localization.

Evidence for Charge‐Trapping Inducing Polymorphic Structural‐Phase Transition in Pentacene

To reveal the relationship between microstructural disorder and charge localization dynamics in a van-der-Waals-bonded molecular semiconductor, the electrical properties of field-effect transistors with zone-cast pentacene films were characterized by using in situ micro-Raman spectroscopy to monitor the films' intermolecular and intramolecular vibrations. Transformations from a high-temperature phase with reduced molecular vibration along the long axis that were induced by electron localization in pentacene molecules at the channel interface and transformations from a low-temperature phase with increased molecular vibration that were induced by the electron delocalization were clearly observed under gate-bias stress, photoexcitation, and thermal annealing. Multilayer molecular dynamics simulations revealed that electrons should be localized in each pentacene molecule to stabilize the low-temperature phase and that the intramolecular Raman peak corresponds to the amount of out-of-plane molecular displacement that is most influential to charge localization and mobility reduction induced by fluctuating transfer integrals. We propose a unified picture to describe the relationship between out-of-plane structural disorder and charge localization dynamics in pentacene polymorphs.

/pdf/disorder-and-localization-dynamics-in-polymorphs-of-the-422x80fek3.pdf

Disorder and localization dynamics in polymorphs of the molecular semiconductor pentacene probed by in situ micro-Raman spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations

Claudia M. Duffy

Papers

Charge Trapping in Intergrain Regions of Pentacene Thin Film Transistors

High-Mobility Aligned Pentacene Films Grown by Zone-Casting

A scanning Kelvin probe study of charge trapping in zone-cast pentacene thin film transistors.

Evidence for Charge‐Trapping Inducing Polymorphic Structural‐Phase Transition in Pentacene

Disorder and localization dynamics in polymorphs of the molecular semiconductor pentacene probed by in situ micro-Raman spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations