Low-voltage organic thin-film transistors based on solution-processed hybrid dielectrics: theoretical and experimental studies

In organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs), using high-k dielectrics could increase the accumulated carrier numbers at low operation voltage (i.e. the bulk effect), but may induce extra dipolar disorders to affect the electronic states in organic semiconductors (i.e. the interfacial effect). The two effects are considered together to model charge transport in OTFTs and to give quantitative calculations of the impacts from using high-k dielectrics or hybrid dielectrics, especially the relations between mobility and Fermi-energy, carrier concentrations, or gate-voltage. In experimental studies, zirconium oxide (ZrO2) and yttrium oxide (Y2O3) are fabricated by solution process for high-k dielectrics. The oxide insulating films are modified by low-k polymer layers and the resulting OTFTs show low operation voltage and high performance in ambient test. The highest mobility reaches 2.38 cm2 V−1 s−1 for ZrO2 based OTFT and 3.56 cm2 V−1 s−1 for Y2O3 based OTFT, and the on/off ratio is 1.4 × 104 for ZrO2 devices and 5.4 × 104 for Y2O3 devices. In general, the trends of experimentally measured mobility are consistent with the theoretical calculations, showing the high-k/low-k hybrid dielectrics mainly improve the carrier mobility in the regime of low carrier density.