Organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) have lived to see great improvements in recent years. This review presents new insight into conduction mechanisms and performance characteristics, as well as opportunities for modeling properties of OTFTs. The shifted focus in research from novel chemical structures to fabrication technologies that optimize morphology and structural order is underscored by chapters on vacuum-deposited and solution-processed organic semiconducting films. Finally, progress in the growing field of the n-type OTFTs is discussed in ample detail. The Figure, showing a pentacene film edge on SiO2, illustrates the morphology issue.

Organic Thin Film Transistors for Large Area Electronics

2.2. Materials 929 2.3. Factors Influencing Charge Mobility 931 2.3.1. Molecular Packing 931 2.3.2. Disorder 932 2.3.3. Temperature 933 2.3.4. Electric Field 934 2.3.5. Impurities 934 2.3.6. Pressure 934 2.3.7. Charge-Carrier Density 934 2.3.8. Size/molecular Weight 935 3. The Charge-Transport Parameters 935 3.1. Electronic Coupling 936 3.1.1. The Energy-Splitting-in-Dimer Method 936 3.1.2. The Orthogonality Issue 937 3.1.3. Impact of the Site Energy 937 3.1.4. Electronic Coupling in Oligoacene Derivatives 938

Charge transport in organic semiconductors.

Since the discovery of highly conducting polyacetylene by Shirakawa, MacDiarmid, and Heeger in 1977, π-conjugated systems have attracted much attention as futuristic materials for the development and production of the next generation of electronics, that is, organic electronics. Conceptually, organic electronics are quite different from conventional inorganic solid state electronics because the structural versatility of organic semiconductors allows for the incorporation of functionality by molecular design. This versatility leads to a new era in the design of electronic devices. To date, the great number of π-conjugated semiconducting materials that have either been discovered or synthesized generate an exciting library of π-conjugated systems for use in organic electronics. 11 However, some key challenges for further advancement remain: the low mobility and stability of organic semiconductors, the lack of knowledge regarding structure property relationships for understanding the fundamental chemical aspects behind the structural design, and realization of desired properties. Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) are a kind of device consisting of an organic semiconducting layer, a gate insulator layer, and three terminals (drain, source, and gate electrodes). OFETs are not only essential building blocks for the next generation of cheap and flexible organic circuits, but they also provide an important insight into the charge transport of πconjugated systems. Therefore, they act as strong tools for the exploration of the structure property relationships of πconjugated systems, such as parameters of field-effect mobility (μ, the drift velocity of carriers under unit electric field), current on/off ratio (the ratio of the maximum on-state current to the minimum off-state current), and threshold voltage (the minimum gate voltage that is required to turn on the transistor). 17 Since the discovery of OFETs in the 1980s, they have attracted much attention. Research onOFETs includes the discovery, design, and synthesis of π-conjugated systems for OFETs, device optimization, development of applications in radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, flexible displays, electronic papers, sensors, and so forth. It is beyond the scope of this review to cover all aspects of π-conjugated systems; hence, our focus will be on the performance analysis of π-conjugated systems in OFETs. This should make it possible to extract information regarding the fundamental merit of semiconducting π-conjugated materials and capture what is needed for newmaterials and what is the synthesis orientation of newπ-conjugated systems. In fact, for a new science with many practical applications, the field of organic electronics is progressing extremely rapidly. For example, using “organic field effect transistor” or “organic field effect transistors” as the query keywords to search the Web of Science citation database, it is possible to show the distribution of papers over recent years as shown in Figure 1A. It is very clear

Semiconducting π-conjugated systems in field-effect transistors: a material odyssey of organic electronics.

An all-polymer semiconductor integrated device is demonstrated with a high-mobility conjugated polymer field-effect transistor (FET) driving a polymer light-emitting diode (LED) of similar size. The FET uses regioregular poly(hexylthiophene). Its performance approaches that of inorganic amorphous silicon FETs, with field-effect mobilities of 0.05 to 0.1 square centimeters per volt second and ON-OFF current ratios of >10 6 . The high mobility is attributed to the formation of extended polaron states as a result of local self-organization, in contrast to the variable-range hopping of self-localized polarons found in more disordered polymers. The FET-LED device represents a step toward all-polymer optoelectronic integrated circuits such as active-matrix polymer LED displays.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/280/5370/1741.full.pdf

Integrated Optoelectronic Devices Based on Conjugated Polymers

A review was presented to demonstrate a historical description of the synthesis of light-emitting conjugated polymers for applications in electroluminescent devices. Electroluminescence (EL) was first reported in poly(para-phenylene vinylene) (PPV) in 1990 and researchers continued to make significant efforts to develop conjugated materials as the active units in light-emitting devices (LED) to be used in display applications. Conjugated oligomers were used as luminescent materials and as models for conjugated polymers in the review. Oligomers were used to demonstrate a structure and property relationship to determine a key polymer property or to demonstrate a technique that was to be applied to polymers. The review focused on demonstrating the way polymer structures were made and the way their properties were controlled by intelligent and rational and synthetic design.

Synthesis of Light-Emitting Conjugated Polymers for Applications in Electroluminescent Devices

We have performed current–voltage measurement on polycrystalline sexithiophene (6 T) thin film transistors at temperatures ranging from 10 to 300 K. A method is developed to extract the carrier mobility from an analysis of the transfer characteristics. In particular, data are corrected for contact resistance. The carrier mobility is found to increase quasilinearly with gate voltage at room temperature. The dependence becomes superlinear at low temperatures. The temperature dependence shows three domains. For 100 K<T<300 K, the mobility is thermally activated with an activation energy of around 0.1 eV. The activation energy reduces to 5 meV for 25 K<T<100 K. Finally, the mobility is practically temperature independent for temperatures lower than 25 K. The data are explained by a model where charge transport is limited by a high concentration of traps at grain boundaries. At high temperatures, charge transfer at boundaries occurs via thermionic emission, while tunnel effect takes place at low temperatures. The energy distribution of traps is determined, and various features predicted by the model are outlined.

Temperature and gate voltage dependence of hole mobility in polycrystalline oligothiophene thin film transistors

Organic field-effect transistors, in which the active semiconductor is made of oligothiophenes of various lengths, have been fabricated and characterized. A method is developed to estimate the field-effect mobility μ corrected for the contact series resistance. The mobility is found to increase by a factor of nearly 100 from quaterthiophene (4T) to octithiophene (8T). More importantly, μ increases quasilinearly with gate voltage. The origin of this gate bias dependence is discussed. One explanation could be the presence of traps that limit charge transport. Alternatively, the gate-voltage dependence is tentatively attributed to a dependence of the mobility with the concentration of carriers in the accumulation layer.

Gate voltage dependent mobility of oligothiophene field-effect transistors

The Concept of “Threshold Voltage” in Organic Field‐Effect Transistors

Field‐effect transistor made with a sexithiophene single crystal

La conductivite et la mobilite d'effet de champ du sexithiopheme non substitue (6T) et du di-alkyl-sexithiophene substitue en bout de chaine (DH6T) ont ete mesurees en fonction de la temperature. Pour des temperatures superieures a 150 K, on trouve une conductivite thermiquement activee, alors que la mobilite montre une energie d'activation dependante de la tension de grille. A forte tension et a haute temperature, on observe une saturation de la mobilite d'effet de champ. Les donnees ont ete analysees dans le cadre d'un modele de piegeages et depiegages multiples. On a ainsi determine la distribution des niveaux localises pres de la bande de transport pour les deux produits. Cette distribution a ete ajustee a une double exponentielle, par analogie avec celle du silicium amorphe hydrogene (a-Si:H). Les pieges profonds dans 6T et DH6T sont associes aux joints de grain. La mobilite plus faible de 6T est attribuee a sa plus grande concentration de defauts. Pour les temperatures inferieures a 150 K, le transport par sauts thermiquement actives entre etats localises devient le mecanisme dominant. Cependant, le transport par piegeages et depiegeages multiples peut de nouveau se manifester dans la couche d'accumulation d'un transitor a effet de champ fortement polarise

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/jpa-00249316/document

Riadh Hajlaoui

Papers

Temperature and gate voltage dependence of hole mobility in polycrystalline oligothiophene thin film transistors

Gate voltage dependent mobility of oligothiophene field-effect transistors

The Concept of “Threshold Voltage” in Organic Field‐Effect Transistors

Field‐effect transistor made with a sexithiophene single crystal

Temperature Dependence of the Field-Effect Mobility of Sexithiophene. Determination of the Density of Traps