Self-assembled monolayer modification of silver source–drain electrodes for high-performance pentacene organic field-effect transistors

We demonstrated excellent performance improvement of bottom-contact pentacene-based organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) fabricated at room-temperature with silver electrodes modified by self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of binary mixtures of n-alkanethiol (n-decanethiol, HDT) and the fluorinated analog (3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,9,9,10,10,10-heptadecafluoro-1-decanethiol, FDT). The OTFTs with modified silver (Ag) electrodes exhibit carrier mobility of 0.21 cm2/V s, which is faster than most of bottom-contact pentacene-based OTFTs fabricated at room-temperature with gold (Au) electrodes. The threshold voltage is reduced from −30 V of the devices with Au electrodes to −5.4 V of the devices with modified Ag electrodes. The hole injection barrier is also reduced with modified Ag as indicated by ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy. The enhancement of the saturation current and the mobility of the devices are due to both the reduction of hole injection barriers and the continuous grain size of pentacene on top of electrodes and dielectrics.

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► The OTFTs with mixtures SAM-modified Ag and Au electrodes were investigated.
► The carrier mobility of modified-Ag OTFTs is 0.21 cm2/V s and threshold voltage is −5.4 V.
► The lower hole injection barrier and the larger and continuous grain size are the keys to device improvement.