Photo-patternable polyimide gate insulator with fluorine groups for improving performance of 2,7-didecyl[1]benzothieno[3,2-b][1]benzothiopene (C10-BTBT) thin-film transistors

Surface properties of gate insulators strongly affect the device performance of organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs). To improve the performance of OTFTs, we have developed photo-sensitive polyimide gate insulator with fluorine groups. The polyimide gate insulator film could be easily patterned by selective UV exposure without any photoinitiator. The polyimide gate insulator film, fabricated at 130 °C, has a dielectric constant of 2.8 at 10 kHz, and leakage current density of <1.6 × 10^?10 A/cm² while biased from 0 to 90 V. To investigate the potential of the polyimide with fluorine groups as a gate insulator, we fabricated C₁₀-BTBT TFTs. The field-effect mobility and the on/off current ratio of the TFTs were measured to be 0.76 ± 0.09 cm²/V s and >10⁶, respectively.     

Hybridization of a low-temperature processable polyimide gate insulator for high performance pentacene thin-film transistors

We have synthesized a novel fully soluble and low-temperature processable polyimide gate insulator (KSPI) through the one-step condensation polymerization of the monomers 5-(2,5-dioxytetrahydrofuryl)-3-methyl-3-cyclohexene-1,2-dicarboxylic anhydride and 4,4-diaminodiphenylmethane. Fully imidized KSPI was found to be completely soluble in organic solvents such as N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), dimethylacetamide (DMAc), γ-butyrolactone, dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), and 2-butoxyethanol. Thin films of KSPI can be fabricated at only 150 °C and a pentacene OTFT with KSPI as a gate dielectric was found to exhibit a field effect mobility of 0.22 cm²/V s. To obtain a high performance organic thin-film transistor (OTFT), the KSPI surface was modified in our new technique by hybridization with a non-polar side chain containing a polyimide insulator (PI). The carrier mobility of a pentacene OTFT with a hybridized polyimide gate insulator (BPI-3) was found to be 0.92 cm²/V s. Our new low-temperature processable polyimides show promise as gate dielectrics for OTFTs.     

High performance tetrathienoacene-DDP based polymer thin-film transistors using a photo-patternable epoxy gate insulating layer

High performance organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) are fabricated on an epoxy based photo-patternable organic gate insulating layer (p-OGI) using a top contact thin-film transistor configuration. This negative tone p-OGI material is composed of an epoxy type polymer resin, a polymeric epoxy cross-linker, and a sulfonium photoacid generator (PAG). Features from p-OGI can be precisely patterned down to ∼3 μm via i-line photolithography. In order to evaluate the potential of this epoxy type resin as a gate insulator, we evaluated the dielectric properties of the p-OGI and its gate insulating performance upon fabricating solution processed OTFTs using an organic semiconductor (OSC), namely tetrathienoacene-DPP copolymer (PTDPPTFT4). Results show that the PTDPPTFT4 based OTFTs with this p-OGI exhibit field-effect mobilities up to 1 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹, indicating the potential of high performance solution processed OTFT based on an epoxy based p-OGI/OSC system.     

Fully aromatic polyimide gate insulators with low temperature processability for pentacene organic thin-film transistors

This paper demonstrates the effects of the imidization ratio of polyimide gate insulators on the performance of organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs). We report the synthetic results of polyimide films imidized at a temperature of 200 °C along with an easily removed organic base catalyst (1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene, DBU), and their application in gate insulators of organic thin-film transistors. The degree of imidization increased to almost 100% after a thermal treatment at 200 °C for 40 min in the presence of DBU. The performance of the pentacene OTFT dramatically improved by using low temperature cured polyimide film as the gate insulator.     

Photocurable propyl-cinnamate-functionalized polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane as a gate dielectric for organic thin film transistors

A polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS)-based insulating material with photocurable propyl-cinnamate groups (POSS-CYNNAM) was designed and synthesized through simple single step reaction for use as a gate dielectric in organic thin-film transistors (OTFT). POSS-CYNNAM was soluble in common organic solvents and formed a smooth thin film after spin-casting. A thin film of POSS-CYNNAM was cross-linked and completely solidified under UV irradiation without the use of additives such as photoacid generators or photoradical initiators. ITO/insulator/Au devices were fabricated and characterized to measure the dielectric properties of POSS-CYNNAM thin films, such as leakage current and capacitance. A pentacene-based OTFT using the synthesized insulator as the gate dielectric layer was fabricated on the transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode, and its performance was compared to OTFTs using thermally cross-linked poly(vinyl phenol) (PVP) as the insulator. The fabricated POSS-CYNNAM OTFT showed a comparable performance to devices based on the PVP insulator with 0.1 cm²/Vs of the field effect mobility and 4.2 × 10⁵ of an on/off ratio.     

Soluble pentacene thin-film transistor using a high solvent and heat resistive polymeric dielectric with low-temperature processability and its long-term stability

Solution processable organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) were fabricated using 6,13-bis(triisopropyl-silylethynyl) pentacene (TIPS-pentacene) and low-temperature processable polyimide gate dielectric. The TIPS-pentacene OTFT with the dielectric was found to have a field-effect mobility of 0.15 cm²/Vs, which is comparable to that of OTFT with an inorganic dielectric. The OTFTs with the polyimide dielectric did not show any significant performance degradation as time passed. A field-effect mobility of the OTFTs in 60 days was found to be almost identical to that of pristine OTFT. The combination of TIPS-pentacene and our polyimide gate dielectric can be one of the potential candidates for the fabrication of stable OTFTs for large-area flexible electronics.     

Effect of the work function of gate electrode on hysteresis characteristics of organic thin-film transistors with Ta2O5/polymer as gate insulator

Organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) using high dielectric constant material tantalum pentoxide (Ta₂O₅) and benzocyclobutenone (BCBO) derivatives as double-layer insulator were fabricated. Three metals with different work function, including Al (4.3 eV), Cr (4.5 eV) and Au (5.1 eV), were employed as gate electrodes to study the correlation between work function of gate metals and hysteresis characteristics of OTFTs. The devices with low work function metal Al or Cr as gate electrode exhibited high hysteresis (about 2.5 V threshold voltage shift). However, low hysteresis (about 0.7 V threshold voltage shift) OTFTs were attained based on high work function metal Au as gate electrode. The hysteresis characteristics were studied by the repetitive gate voltage sweep of OTFTs, and capacitance–voltage (C–V) and trap loss-voltage (G_p/ω?V) measurements of metal–insulator–semiconductor (MIS) devices. It is proved that the hysteresis characteristics of OTFTs are relative to the electron injection from gate metal to Ta₂O₅ insulator. The electron barrier height between gate metal and Ta₂O₅ is enhanced by using Au as gate electrode, and then the electron injection from gate metal to Ta₂O₅ is reduced. Finally, low hysteresis OTFTs were fabricated using Au as gate electrode.     

Organic thin film transistors with double insulator layers

We have investigated a double-layer structured gate dielectric for the organic thin films transistor (OTFT) with the purpose of improving the performance of the SiO₂ gate insulator. A 50 nm PMMA layer was coated on top of the SiO₂ gate insulator as organic insulator layer. The results demonstrated that using inorganic/organic compound insulator as the gate dielectric layers is an effective method to fabricate OTFTs with improved electric characteristics and decreased leakage current. Electrical parameters such as carrier mobility and on/off ratio by field effect measurement have been calculated. OTFT based on highly doped Si substrate with a field-effect mobility of 0.004 cm²/V s and on/off ratio of 10⁴ have been obtained.     

Solution processable bilayered gate dielectric towards flexible organic thin film transistors

In this study, we have successfully explored the potential of a new bilayer gate dielectric material, composed of Polystyrene (PS), Pluronic P123 Block Copolymer Surfactant (P123) composite thin film and Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) through fabrication of metal insulator metal (MIM) capacitor devices and organic thin film transistors (OTFTs). The conditions for fabrication of PAN and PS-P123 as a bilayer dielectric material are optimized before employing it further as a gate dielectric in OTFTs. Simple solution processable techniques are applied to deposit PAN and PS-P123 as a bilayer dielectric layer on Polyimide (PI) substrates. Contact angle study is further performed to explore the surface property of this bilayer polymer gate dielectric material. This new bilayer dielectric having a k value of 3.7 intermediate to that of PS-P123 composite thin film dielectric (k ∼ 2.8) and PAN dielectric (k ∼ 5.5) has successfully acted as a buffer layer by preventing the direct contact between the organic semiconducting layer and high k PAN dielectric. The OTFT devices based on α,ω-dihexylquaterthiophene (DH4T) incorporated with this bilayer dielectric, has demonstrated a hole mobility of 1.37 × 10⁻² and on/off current ratio of 10³ which is one of the good values as reported before. Several bending conditions are applied, to explore the charge carrier hopping mechanism involved in deterioration of electrical properties of these OTFTs. Additionally, the electrical performance of OTFTs, which are exposed to open atmosphere for five days, can be interestingly recovered by means of re-baking them respectively at 90 °C.     

Fabrication of organic thin film transistors on Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) fabric substrates

In this paper organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) are directly fabricated on fabric substrates consisting of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) fibers. A key process is coating the polymer layers on the fabric in order to reduce the large surface roughness of the fabric substrate. Two polymers, i.e. polyurethane (PU) and photo-acryl (PA), are used to reduce the large surface roughness and simultaneously improve the process compatibility of the layers with the subsequent OTFTs processes while also retaining the original flexibility of the fabric. The surface roughness of the PU/PA-coated fabric is significantly reduced to 0.3 μm. Furthermore, the original flexibility of the PET fabric remained after coating of the PU/PA polymer layers. The mobility of the OTFTs fabricated on the PU-PA coated fabric substrate is 0.05 ± 0.02 cm²/V s when three PA layers and 90 nm thick pentacene layer were used. The performance does not vary even after 30,000 bending test.     

Low-voltage,high-performance n-channel organic thin-film transistors based on tantalum pentoxide insulator modified by polar polymers

Polar polymers (polyfluorene copolymers, PFN–PBT) with different polarities are utilized to modify the surface of tantalum pentoxide (Ta₂O₅) insulator in n-channel organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs). A high mobility of 0.55 cm²/Vs, high on/off current ratio of 1.7 × 10⁵, and low threshold voltage of 2.8 V are attained for the OTFT with the modification polymers, the performances of which are much better than those of OTFT with only Ta₂O₅ insulator. The performances of the OTFT with only Ta₂O₅ insulator are only 0.006 cm²/Vs in mobility, 5 × 10³ in on/off ratio, and 12.5 V in threshold voltage. Furthermore, it is found that the threshold voltage of the OTFTs with PFN–PBT modification layer is easily tuned by polarities of the polymers. Further studies show that self-assembly dipole moments in the polymers play an important role in the improvement of the OTFT performances.     

Flexible nonvolatile organic ferroelectric memory transistors fabricated on polydimethylsiloxane elastomer

The flexible organic ferroelectric nonvolatile memory thin film transistors (OFMTs) were fabricated on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer substrates, in which an organic ferroelectric poly(vinylidene-trifluoroethylene) and an organic semiconducting poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-co-bithiophene) layers were used as gate insulator and active channel, respectively. The carrier mobility, on/off ratio, and subthreshold swing of the OFMTs fabricated on PDMS showed 5 × 10⁻² cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹, 7.5 × 10³, and 2.5 V/decade, respectively. These obtained values did not markedly change when the substrate was bent with a radius of curvature of 0.6 cm. The memory on/off ratio was initially obtained to be 1.5 × 10³ and maintained to be 20 even after a lapse of 2000 s. The fabricated OFMTs exhibited sufficiently encouraging device characteristics even on the PDMS elastomer to realize mechanically stretchable nonvolatile memory devices.     

Bottom gate organic thin-film transistors fabricated by ultraviolet transfer embossing with improved device performance

Ultraviolet transfer embossing is optimized to fabricate bottom gate organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) on flexible plastic substrates, achieving significant improved device performance (μ = 0.01–0.02cm²/Vs; on/off ratio = 10⁴) compared with the top gate OTFTs made previously by the same method (μ = 0.001–0.002 cm²/Vs; on/off ratio = 10²). The performance improvement can be ascribed to the reduced roughness of the dielectric-semiconductor interface (R_rms = 0.852 nm) and thermally cross-linked PVP dielectric which leads to reduced gate leakage current and transistor off current in the bottom-gated configuration. This technique brings an alternative great opportunity to the high-volume production of economic printable large-area OTFT-based flexible electronics and sensors.     

Polyimide/polyvinyl alcohol bilayer gate insulator for low-voltage organic thin-film transistors

In this paper, we report the fabrication of a polyimide/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) bilayer gate insulator for low-voltage organic thin-film transistors (TFTs). The introduction of a PVA layer to form a bilayer structure improves the dielectric and insulating properties of the gate insulator. Organic TFTs with 150 nm-thick polyimide and PVA gate insulators were inactive at low operation voltages below 5 V. Conversely, organic TFTs with 150 nm-thick polyimide/PVA bilayer gate insulators exhibited excellent device performances. Our results suggest that the introduction of a PVA layer with a high dielectric constant could be a simple and efficient way to improve the device performance of low-voltage organic TFTs.     

IGZO thin film transistors with Al2O3 gate insulators fabricated at different temperatures

Thin film transistors (TFTs) with bottom gate and staggered electrodes using atomic layer deposited Al₂O₃ as gate insulator and radio frequency sputtered In–Ga–Zn Oxide (IGZO) as channel layer are fabricated in this work. The performances of IGZO TFTs with different deposition temperature of Al₂O₃ are investigated and compared. The experiment results show that the Al₂O₃ deposition temperature play an important role in the field effect mobility, I_on/I_off ratio, sub-threshold swing and bias stability of the devices. The TFT with a 250 °C Al₂O₃ gate insulator shows the best performance; specifically, field effect mobility of 6.3 cm²/Vs, threshold voltage of 5.1 V, I_on/I_off ratio of 4×10⁷, and sub-threshold swing of 0.56 V/dec. The 250 °C Al₂O₃ insulator based device also shows a substantially smaller threshold voltage shift of 1.5 V after a 10 V gate voltage is stressed for 1 h, while the value for the 200, 300 and 350 °C Al₂O₃ insulator based devices are 2.3, 2.6, and 1.64 V, respectively.     

ZrO2 insulator modified by a thin Al2O3 film to enhance the performance of InGaZnO thin-film transistor

A high-performance InGaZnO (IGZO) thin-film transistor (TFT) with ZrO₂–Al₂O₃ bilayer gate insulator is fabricated. Compared to IGZO-TFT with ZrO₂ single gate insulator, its electrical characteristics are significantly improved, specifically, enhancement of I_on/I_off ratios by one order of magnitude, increase of the field-effect mobility (from 9.8 to 14 cm²/Vs), reduction of the subthreshold swing from 0.46 to 0.33 V/dec, the maximum density of surface states at the channel-insulator interface decreased from 4.3 × 10¹² to 2.5 × 10¹² cm⁻². The performance enhancements are attributed to the suppression of leakage current, smoother surface morphology, and suppression of charge trapping by using Al₂O₃ films to modify the high-k ZrO₂ dielectric.     

A cross-linked poly(methyl methacrylate) gate dielectric by ion-beam irradiation for organic thin-film transistors

The electrical characteristics of pentacene organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) using cross-linked poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as the gate dielectric are reported. Ultra-thin films of cross-linked PMMA could be obtained by spin-coating and subsequent irradiation using a 1.515 MeV ⁴He⁺ ion beam. The resulting film, with a thickness of 33 nm, possessed a low leakage current density of about 10^?6 A cm^?2 for fields up to 2 MV cm^?1. OTFTs incorporating the cross-linked dielectric operated at relatively low voltages, <10 V, and exhibited a mobility of 1.1 cm² V^?1 s^?1, a threshold voltage of ?1 V, a sub-threshold slope of 220 mV per decade and an on/off current ratio of 1.0 × 10⁶.     

Effect of active layer thickness on environmental stability of printed thin-film transistor

We have studied the effect of active layer thickness on the performance and environmental stability of the 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl) pentacene (TIPS pentacene) thin-film transistor. The organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) were fabricated by inkjet printing using a solution based TIPS pentacene. To get thick organic semiconductor, the surface of gate insulator was treated with n-octyltrichlorosilane (OTS-C₈) before jetting. The on-currents of the OTFT with ～1 μm active layer decreases a little in air, but the OTFT with 0.05 μm TIPS pentacene shows a significant degradation in drain currents.     

Fabrication of the flexible pentacene thin-film transistors on 304 and 430 stainless steel (SS) substrate

Flexible organic thin-film transistors (OTFT) were fabricated on 304 and 430 stainless steel (SS) substrate with aluminum oxide as a gate insulator and pentacene as an organic semiconductor. Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process was used to study the effect of the SS roughens on the dielectric properties of the gate insulator and OTFT characteristics. The surface roughness was decreased from 33.8 nm for 304 SS and 19.5 nm for 430 SS down to ～2.5 nm. The leakage current of the metal–insulator–metal (MIM) structure (Au/Al₂O₃/SS) was reduced with polishing. Mobility and on/off ratio of pentacene TFT with bare SS showed a wide range of values between 0.005 and 0.36 cm²/Vs and between 10³ and 10⁵ depending on the location in the substrate. Pentacene TFTs on polished SS showed an improved performance with a mobility of 0.24–0.42 cm²/Vs regardless of the location in the substrate and on/off ratio of ～10⁵. With self assembled monolayer formation of octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) on insulator surface, mobility and on/off ratio of pentacene TFT on polished SS was improved up to 0.85cm²/Vs and ～10⁶. I–V characteristics of pentacene TFT with OTS treated Al₂O₃/304 SS was also obtained in the bent state with a bending diameter (D) of 24, 45 or 70 mm and it was confirmed that the device performed well both in the linear regime and the saturation regime.     

Channel width effect for organic thin film transistors using TIPS-pentacene employed as a dopant of poly-triarylamine

The effects of the physical channel width on the characteristics of organic thin film transistors (OTFTs), made with 6,13-bis(triisopropyl-silylethynyl)-pentacene (TIPS-pentacene) embedded into poly-triarylamine (PTAA, hole conductor within an active channel), have been examined in this paper. The devices are estimated by measuring the drain-source current (I_DS) for different contact metals such as Au and Ag, at fixed gate and drain voltages. The results show that the threshold voltage (V_T) and I_DS increase with increasing channel width. Furthermore, it has been observed that the field effect mobility is dependent on V_T, which is influenced by the channel width. The OTFTs, produced using Au and Ag contacts, exhibited the highest values of mobility in the saturation regime, namely 5.44 × 10^?2 and 1.33 × 10^?2 cm²/Vs, respectively.