Direct investigations of the interface impedance of organic field-effect transistors with self-assembled-monolayer-modified electrodes

• The effect of surface-modified electrodes on organic transistors was studied using FM-SIM.
• The improvement of the interface conductance by PFBT-SAM modification was directly measured.
• It was shown that the metal–organic energy level mismatch was reduced by the PFBT-SAM modification.

It has been demonstrated that the modification of electrodes with self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) reduces the contact resistance and improves the device performances of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). However, it has been difficult to judge if the contact resistance was reduced by the change in the electronic properties or by the change in the morphology of the metal–organic interface caused by the SAM modification because they have been difficult to be separately assessed. We have directly investigated the local impedance and the potential difference at the electrode–channel interfaces of the OFETs with and without modification of the electrodes by a pentafluorobenzenethiol SAM using frequency-modulation scanning impedance microscopy (FM-SIM). The potential profile measurement and the FM-SIM measurement at the interface showed that the improvement of the field-effect mobility in the SAM-modified OFET was caused by the reduction of the energy level mismatch, namely, the hole injection barrier at the source–channel interface, presumably with the reduction of the hole trap sites at the source–channel interface.

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