Citation
Acton, O.; Dubey, M.; Weidner, T.; O'Malley, K. M.; Kim, T. W.; Ting, G. G.; Hutchins, D.; Baio, J. E.; Lovejoy, T. C.; Gage, A. H.; Castner, D. G.; Ma, H.; & Jen, A. K. Y. (2011). Simultaneous Modification of Bottom-Contact Electrode and Dielectric Surfaces for Organic Thin-Film Transistors Through Single-Component Spin-Cast Monolayers. Advanced Functional Materials, 21(8), 1476-1488.Abstract
An efficient process is developed by spin-coating a single-component, self-assembled monolayer (SAM) to simultaneously modify the bottom-contact electrode and dielectric surfaces of organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs). This efficient interface modification is achieved using n-alkyl phosphonic acid based SAMs to prime silver bottom-contacts and hafnium oxide (HfO2) dielectrics in low-voltage OTFTs. Surface characterization using near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and spectroscopic ellipsometry suggest this process yields structurally well-defined phosphonate SAMs on both metal and oxide surfaces. Rational selection of the alkyl length of the SAM leads to greatly enhanced performance for both n-channel (C-60) and p-channel (pentacene) based OTFTs. Specifically, SAMs of n-octylphosphonic acid (OPA) provide both low-contact resistance at the bottom-contact electrodes and excellent interfacial properties for compact semiconductor grain growth with high carrier mobilities. OTFTs based on OPA modified silver electrode/HfO2 dielectric bottom-contact structures can be operated using < 3V with low contact resistance (down to 700 Ohm-cm), low subthreshold swing (as low as 75 mV dec(-1)), high on/off current ratios of 107, and charge carrier mobilities as high as 4.6 and 0.8 cm(2) V-1 s(-1), for C-60 and pentacene, respectively. These results demonstrate that this is a simple and efficient process for improving the performance of bottom-contact OTFTs.Keyword(s)
alkanephosphate monolayerscoupling moleculesenergy-level alignmentfield-effect transistorsmolecular electronicsoxide surfacesphotoelectron-spectroscopyself-assembled monolayersstructural-characterizationx-ray-absorptionNotes
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