Organic field-effect transistors (FETs) have attracted considerable attention because of their potential for realizing large-area, mechanically flexible, lightweight and low-cost devices. Pentacene, which is a promising material for organic FETs, has been intensely studied. This article reviews the basic properties of pentacene films and crystals, and the characteristics of pentacene FETs fabricated under various conditions, including our recent achievement of low-voltage operating high-mobility FETs. The basic properties include the crystal polymorph, the band structure and the effective mass. These data have been used for discussion of carrier transport and mobility in pentacene films. The characteristics of pentacene FETs generally depend on the conditions of the pentacene film and the gate-dielectric surface. The dependences are summarized in the article. In addition, liquid-crystal displays and organic light-emitting device arrays using pentacene FETs are reviewed as applications of organic FETs, and complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor circuits using our low-voltage operating FETs are also shown.

We report on the device characteristics of amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs) with aluminum (Al) electrodes. The TFTs exhibited a high performance with a field-effect mobility of 11.39 cm2/V s, a subthreshold swing of 181 mV/ decade, and an on-off ratio of 107. Further improvement in device performance was achieved by doping the source/drain contact regions, resulting in an enhanced mobility of 16.6 cm2/V s at an operating voltage as low as 5 V.

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Self-alignment of InGaAs quantum dots was achieved by growing the quantum dots on the multiatomic steps in metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. In this technique, first GaAs epilayer with multiatomic step structures along straight lines was grown on a vicinal GaAs substrate under appropriate growth conditions. Then, the InGaAs quantum dots were grown selectively on the multiatomic step edges using strain effects. This growth technique results in spontaneously aligned InGaAs quantum dots without any preprocessing technique prior to the growth.

We studied GeTe structures in superlattice phase change memories (superlattice PCMs) with a [GeTe/Sb2Te3] stacked structure by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. We examined the electrical characteristics of superlattice PCMs with films deposited at different temperatures. It was found that XRD spectra differed between the films deposited at 200 °C and 240 °C; the differences corresponded to the differences in the GeTe sequences in the films. We applied first-principles calculations to calculate the total energy of three different GeTe sequences. The results showed the Ge-Te-Ge-Te sequence had the lowest total energy of the three and it was found that with this sequence the superlattice PCMs did not run.

Bottom-contact n-channel C60 thin-film transistors (TFTs) with drain/source electrodes modified by benzenethiol derivatives have been fabricated to investigate the influence of the modification on the transistor characteristics. Modification using methylbenzenethiol, aminobenzenethiol, and (dimethylamino)benzenethiol having electron-donating groups causes threshold voltages to shift to low voltages. In addition, the modification provides no significant decrease in saturation mobilities. A C60 TFT with (dimethylamino)benzenethiol-modified electrodes has a low threshold voltage of 5.1 V as compared to that of 16.8 V for a TFT with nonmodified electrodes. The threshold-voltage shift is probably because the modification reduces electron-injection barrier height and improves electron injection into organic semiconductors.

The work function of Au surfaces modified with various substituted benzenethiols has been systematically investigated for application to the design of organic electronic devices. The work function was found to vary in the range of 4.37 to 5.48 eV depending on the substituted benzenethiol used, which included pentafluorobenzenethiol, 4-fluorobenzenethiol, 4-methylbenzenethiol, 4-aminobenzenethiol, and 4-(dimethylamino)benzenethiol. Subsequent thermal annealing of the modified Au films above 373 K changed the work function back to that of an unmodified Au surface. Meanwhile, thermal desorption spectroscopy revealed species desorbing from the modified Au surfaces, indicating cleavage of the C–S bond as well as the S–Au bond.

Organic complementary inverters with C60 and pentacene thin-film transistors (TFTs) have been fabricated on glass substrate. The inverter operated at low voltages of 1–5V. The C60 and pentacene TFTs had high field-effect mobilities of 0.68 and 0.59cm2∕Vs, and threshold voltage of 0.80 and −0.84V, respectively. The low threshold voltage enables the low voltage operation of the inverter.