The application of a high-k polymer in flexible low-voltage organic thin-film transistors

Although much progress has been made in the study of high-mobility organic semiconductors in recent years, one major challenge for organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) in real applications is the relatively high operating voltage, which is mainly related to the gate dielectric of the OTFT. Here we show the application of a high-k poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofloroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE-CFE)) as the gate dielectric of flexible low-voltage pentacene OTFTs for the first time. The performance of the OTFTs is optimized by modifying the surface of P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) films with various thin polymer films by a solution process. The flexible OTFTs show excellent performance at the operating voltage of 4 V and good stability after 1000 bending tests. It is expected that P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) is a suitable gate dielectric for low-voltage OTFTs based on various small-molecule organic semiconductors because P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) terpolymer films can be easily modified with different thin polymer films by a solution process.

[1]  Feng Yan,et al.  Organic Thin‐Film Transistors for Chemical and Biological Sensing , 2012, Advanced materials.

[2]  C. Choy,et al.  Cooling-rate-dependent dielectric properties of (Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3)0.67(PbTiO3)0.33 single crystals in ferroelectric phase , 2002 .

[3]  Tobin J Marks,et al.  Flexible low-voltage organic thin-film transistors enabled by low-temperature, ambient solution-processable inorganic/organic hybrid gate dielectrics. , 2010, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[4]  Feng Yan,et al.  Solution Processable Low‐Voltage Organic Thin Film Transistors with High‐k Relaxor Ferroelectric Polymer as Gate Insulator , 2012, Advanced materials.

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

[6]  A. Arias,et al.  Materials and applications for large area electronics: solution-based approaches. , 2010, Chemical reviews.

[7]  H. Sirringhaus Reliability of Organic Field‐Effect Transistors , 2009 .

[8]  Zhenan Bao,et al.  Mechanistic Considerations of Bending‐Strain Effects within Organic Semiconductors on Polymer Dielectrics , 2012 .

[9]  Maxim Shkunov,et al.  Liquid-crystalline semiconducting polymers with high charge-carrier mobility , 2006, Nature materials.

[10]  Henning Sirringhaus,et al.  Device Physics of Solution‐Processed Organic Field‐Effect Transistors , 2005 .

[11]  J. Stöhr,et al.  Surface Relaxations in Polymers , 1997 .

[12]  H. Sirringhaus,et al.  Observation of Field‐Effect Transistor Behavior at Self‐Organized Interfaces , 2004 .

[13]  Zhenan Bao,et al.  Ion-modulated ambipolar electrical conduction in thin-film transistors based on amorphous conjugated polymers , 2001 .

[14]  Feng Yan,et al.  Organic Electrochemical Transistors Integrated in Flexible Microfluidic Systems and Used for Label‐Free DNA Sensing , 2011, Advanced materials.

[15]  Tobin J Marks,et al.  High-k organic, inorganic, and hybrid dielectrics for low-voltage organic field-effect transistors. , 2010, Chemical reviews.

[16]  Tobin J Marks,et al.  Gate dielectric chemical structure-organic field-effect transistor performance correlations for electron, hole, and ambipolar organic semiconductors. , 2006, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[17]  Feng Yan,et al.  The Application of Organic Electrochemical Transistors in Cell‐Based Biosensors , 2010, Advanced materials.

[18]  Jianbin Xu,et al.  The influence of gate dielectrics on a high-mobility n-type conjugated polymer in organic thin-film transistors , 2012 .

[19]  P. Migliorato,et al.  Temperature dependent characteristics of all polymer thin-film transistors based on poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-co-bithiophene) , 2007 .

[20]  H. Sirringhaus,et al.  Charge Transport Physics of Conjugated Polymer Field‐Effect Transistors , 2010, Advanced materials.

[21]  Lei Zhang,et al.  Interfacial Heterogeneity of Surface Energy in Organic Field‐Effect Transistors , 2011, Advanced materials.

[22]  Se Hyun Kim,et al.  Low-voltage pentacene field-effect transistors with ultrathin polymer gate dielectrics , 2006 .

[23]  Jiyoul Lee,et al.  Printable ion-gel gate dielectrics for low-voltage polymer thin-film transistors on plastic. , 2008, Nature materials.

[24]  H. Sirringhaus,et al.  A quantitative analytical model for static dipolar disorder broadening of the density of states at organic heterointerfaces. , 2008, The Journal of chemical physics.

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

[26]  A. Facchetti,et al.  A high-mobility electron-transporting polymer for printed transistors , 2009, Nature.

[27]  Janos Veres,et al.  Low‐k Insulators as the Choice of Dielectrics in Organic Field‐Effect Transistors , 2003 .

[28]  Evidence of water-related discrete trap state formation in pentacene single-crystal field-effect transistors , 2005, cond-mat/0508607.

[29]  Chan Eon Park,et al.  The Effect of Gate‐Dielectric Surface Energy on Pentacene Morphology and Organic Field‐Effect Transistor Characteristics , 2005 .

[30]  Ute Zschieschang,et al.  Low-voltage organic transistors with an amorphous molecular gate dielectric , 2004, Nature.

[31]  A. Morpurgo,et al.  Tunable Fröhlich polarons in organic single-crystal transistors , 2006, Nature materials.

[32]  C. Dimitrakopoulos,et al.  Low-voltage organic transistors on plastic comprising high-dielectric constant gate insulators , 1999, Science.

[33]  Gilles Horowitz,et al.  Organic Field‐Effect Transistors , 1998 .

[34]  Tobin J Marks,et al.  Low-voltage organic field-effect transistors and inverters enabled by ultrathin cross-linked polymers as gate dielectrics. , 2005, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[35]  Feng Yan,et al.  Enhancement of Hole Mobility of Poly(3‐hexylthiophene) Induced by Titania Nanorods in Composite Films , 2011, Advanced materials.

[36]  E. W. Meijer,et al.  Two-dimensional charge transport in self-organized, high-mobility conjugated polymers , 1999, Nature.

[37]  Zhenan Bao,et al.  Cross-Linked Polymer Gate Dielectric Films for Low-Voltage Organic Transistors , 2009 .

[38]  A. Petchsuk,et al.  Synthesis and Properties of Ferroelectric Fluoroterpolymers with Curie Transition at Ambient Temperature , 2002 .

[39]  Oana D. Jurchescu,et al.  Interface‐Controlled, High‐Mobility Organic Transistors , 2007 .

[40]  Intrinsic hole mobility and trapping in a regioregular poly(thiophene) , 2004, cond-mat/0407502.

[41]  B. Batlogg,et al.  Low-voltage organic transistors and inverters with ultrathin fluoropolymer gate dielectric , 2009, 0911.1219.