Abrupt heating-induced high-quality crystalline rubrene thin films for organic thin-film transistors

We present a simple but effective approach to fabricate high-quality crystalline rubrene thin-film active layers for organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) based on an abrupt heating process. Through this method, continuous, highly ordered, and highly oriented crystalline rubrene thin films comprising large single-crystalline grains (average size: ∼80 μm) can be remarkably rapidly produced in just 1 min without any dielectric surface modification process. OTFTs with carrier mobility as high as 1.21 cm2 V−1 s−1 and on/off current ratios greater than 106 are demonstrated under air-ambient condition using the approach. These results suggest that our approach is very promising to fabricate high-performance OTFTs for practical applications in organic electronics.

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► We report an approach to fabricate high-quality crystalline rubrene thin-film active layers based on an abrupt heating process.
► The high-quality crystalline rubrene film can be remarkably rapidly produced without any additional process.
► The rubrene thin-film transistors show carrier mobility as high as 1.21 cm2 V−1 s−1 and on/off current ratios greater than 106 under ambient condition.