The Relationship between Threshold Voltage and Dipolar Character of Self-Assembled Monolayers in Organic Thin-Film Transistors

We report a quantitative study that describes and correlates the threshold voltage of low-voltage organic field-effect transistors with the molecular structure of self-assembled monolayer dielectrics. We have observed that the component of the dipole moment of such self-assembled molecules perpendicular to the surface correlates linearly with the threshold voltage shift in devices. The model was validated using three different organic semiconductors (pentacene, α,α′-dihexylsexithiophene, and fullerene–C60) on six different self-assembled monolayers. The correlation found can help optimize future devices, by tuning the dipole moments of the molecules that constitute the self-assembled monolayer.