High performance organic field-effect transistors with ultra-thin HfO2 gate insulator deposited directly onto the organic semiconductor

Abstract

We have produced stable organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) with an ultra-thin HfO2 gate insulator deposited directly on top of rubrene single crystals by atomic layer deposition (ALD). We find that ALD is a gentle deposition process to grow thin films without damaging rubrene single crystals, as results these devices have a negligibly small threshold voltage and are very stable against gate-bias-stress, and the mobility exceeds 1 cm2/V s. Moreover, the devices show very little degradation even when kept in air for more than 2 months. These results demonstrate thin HfO2 layers deposited by ALD to be well suited as high capacitance gate dielectrics in OFETs operating at small gate voltage. In addition, the dielectric layer acts as an effective passivation layer to protect the organic semiconductor.