Performance enhancement of poly(3-hexylthiophene) organic field-effect transistor by inserting poly(methylmethacrylate) buffer layer

Electrode buffer layer has been extensively studied to improve the performance of organic field-effect transistor (OFET). Here, poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) was employed as an electrode buffer layer between poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) layer and gold electrodes in OFETs. These OFETs exhibited nearly five-fold enhancement of hole mobility. Through atomic force microscope and grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction analyses, the performance enhancement was attributed to the uniformity and hydrophobicity of PMMA surface, which led to a remarkable reduction of contact resistance at P3HT/electrode interface. This study provides a facile strategy for the performance enhancement of OFET and insights into the essentiality of buffer layers.

[1]  S. Bauer,et al.  Organic Nonvolatile Memory Transistors for Flexible Sensor Arrays , 2009, Science.

[2]  Marko Marinkovic,et al.  On the Origin of Contact Resistances of Organic Thin Film Transistors , 2012, Advanced materials.

[3]  Xinge Yu,et al.  Performance enhancement of organic thin-film transistors with improved copper phthalocyanine crystallization by inserting ultrathin pentacene buffer , 2012 .

[4]  Chunhai Fan,et al.  Optical Detection of Mercury(II) in Aqueous Solutions by Using Conjugated Polymers and Label‐Free Oligonucleotides , 2007 .

[5]  I. Phang,et al.  Growth of Carbon Nanotubes on Clay: Unique Nanostructured Filler for High‐Performance Polymer Nanocomposites , 2006 .

[6]  Terry J. Smith,et al.  Ultrathin and smooth poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) films for label-free biomolecule detection with total internal reflection ellipsometry (TIRE). , 2012, Biosensors & bioelectronics.

[7]  Yong-Young Noh,et al.  Downscaling of self-aligned, all-printed polymer thin-film transistors. , 2007, Nature nanotechnology.

[8]  Hongxiang Li,et al.  High-performance air-stable n-type transistors with an asymmetrical device configuration based on organic single-crystalline submicrometer/nanometer ribbons. , 2006, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[9]  T. Someya,et al.  Flexible organic transistors and circuits with extreme bending stability. , 2010, Nature materials.

[10]  Michael S. Shur,et al.  An experimental study of contact effects in organic thin film transistors , 2006 .

[11]  Gui Yu,et al.  Functional Organic Field‐Effect Transistors , 2010, Advanced materials.

[12]  Zhang,et al.  Atomistic Processes in the Early Stages of Thin-Film Growth , 1997, Science.

[13]  Junsheng Yu,et al.  Hole mobility enhancement of pentacene organic field-effect transistors using 4,4′,4″-tris[3-methylphenyl(phenyl)amino] triphenylamine as a hole injection interlayer , 2011 .

[14]  H. H. Lee,et al.  Cooperative polymer gate dielectrics in organic thin-film transistors , 2004 .

[15]  R. Sarpeshkar,et al.  Large-scale complementary integrated circuits based on organic transistors , 2000, Nature.

[16]  S. T. Lee,et al.  Small-Diameter Silicon Nanowire Surfaces , 2003, Science.

[17]  Tobin J. Marks,et al.  Influence of Thiol Self‐Assembled Monolayer Processing on Bottom‐Contact Thin‐Film Transistors Based on n‐Type Organic Semiconductors , 2012 .

[18]  Zhenan Bao,et al.  Organic thin film transistors , 2004 .

[19]  Luigi Colombo,et al.  Contact resistance in few and multilayer graphene devices , 2010 .

[20]  Juhwan Kim,et al.  Controlled charge transport by polymer blend dielectrics in top-gate organic field-effect transistors for low-voltage-operating complementary circuits. , 2012, ACS applied materials & interfaces.

[21]  Hysteresis in In2O3:Zn nanowire field-effect transistor and its application as a nonvolatile memory device , 2008 .

[22]  Bin Liu,et al.  Shape-adaptable water-soluble conjugated polymers. , 2003, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[23]  Kesong Liu,et al.  Metallic surfaces with special wettability. , 2011, Nanoscale.

[24]  Yan-Kuin Su,et al.  Study of organic thin film transistor with polymethylmethacrylate as a dielectric layer , 2007 .

[25]  B. Mazhari,et al.  Impact of scaling of dielectric thickness on mobility in top-contact pentacene organic thin film transistors , 2012 .

[26]  Lei Zhang,et al.  Morphology Optimization for the Fabrication of High Mobility Thin‐Film Transistors , 2011, Advanced materials.

[27]  Junliang Yang,et al.  Phthalocyanato Tin(IV) Dichloride: An Air‐Stable, High‐Performance, n‐Type Organic Semiconductor with a High Field‐Effect Electron Mobility , 2008 .

[28]  C. Dimitrakopoulos,et al.  Organic Thin Film Transistors for Large Area Electronics , 2002 .

[29]  Thuc‐Quyen Nguyen,et al.  DNA Interlayers Enhance Charge Injection in Organic Field‐Effect Transistors , 2012, Advanced materials.

[30]  Thomas H. Reilly,et al.  Plasmon-enhanced solar energy conversion in organic bulk heterojunction photovoltaics , 2008 .

[31]  B. Sumpter,et al.  High-performance field-effect transistors based on polystyrene-b-poly(3-hexylthiophene) diblock copolymers. , 2011, ACS nano.