Self-aligned surface treatment for thin-film organic transistors

Abstract

For organic thin-film transistors where source-drain contacts are defined on the gate dielectric prior to the deposition of the semiconductor (“bottom-contact” configuration), the gate dielectric is often treated with a self-assembled molecular monolayer prior to deposition of the organic semiconductor. In this letter, we describe a method to apply an ultrathin solution-processed polymer layer as surface treatment. Our method is compatible with the use of the bottom-contact configuration, despite the fact that the polymeric surface treatment does not stand a photolithographic step. Furthermore, we show that our surface treatment results in superior transistor performance.

Inkjet Printing of TIPS‐PEN on Soluble Polymer Insulating Films: A Route to High‐Performance Thin‐Film Transistors

“…Such a passivation and smoothening layer is often reported to have positive effects in transistors based on evaporated pentacene. [29][30][31] It would explain why our POP samples show good TFT switching characteristics when the gate-dielectric is not deliberately coated with a SAM, whereas the control transistors do not.…”

Organic complementary oscillators with stage-delays below 1 μs

“…In our normal process, the appropriate SAM to repel toluene is a thiol with a fluorinated end-group. 15 However, such a thiol increases the effective work-function 16,17 of the metal contact, resulting in a higher barrier for carrier injection from Au into the lowesta͒ Electronic mail: dieter.bode@imec.be. unoccupied molecular orbital of C 60 .…”

Solution-processed high-performance flexible 9, 10-bis(phenylethynyl)anthracene organic single-crystal transistor and ring oscillator

“…24,25 It is a common knowledge that Au electrodes treated by thiol derivatives can greatly reduce the contact resistance between the electrode and semiconductor in light of its affinity toward metallic Au and the proper electronic structure. [26][27][28][29] Here, thiophenol was chosen for the electrode surface modification due to its superior electronic functionality. 24,25 After the electrodes were coated with the buffer layer by immersing into thiophenol solution of concentration ca.…”