Hydrophobic dielectric surface influenced active layer thickness effect on hysteresis and mobility degradation in organic field effect transistors

•Effect of active layer thickness on hydrophobic dielectric.•Optimum thickness for improved mobility and threshold voltage stability differ.•Larger grain boundary density at higher thickness causes larger drain current decay.•Mobility degradation depends on hydrophobic surface affectedactive layer thickness.

Effect of active layer thickness, influenced by the hydrophobic dielectric surface, on the performance of copper phthalocyanine based organic field effect transistors (OFETs) was studied. While charge carrier mobility was found to be highest for an optimum thickness of 30 nm, hysteresis and threshold voltage shift were found to be minimum for 15 nm thick film which is attributed to the excess availability of photogenerated carriers, especially close to the dielectric/semiconductor interface, as this thickness is within the exciton quenching length in organic semiconductors. But prolonged bias stress resulted in larger decay in drain current for higher thickness indicating the dominant role played by the larger grain boundary density in the increased volume. These results were found to be different from that on unmodified SiO2 dielectric with higher surface energy and were suggested to be caused by the 3D growth mode of CuPc films on the hydrophobic surface. Mobility degradation at higher gate voltages also exhibited a dependence on the active layer thickness which was tuned by the hydrophobic surface induced growth mode at the dielectric/semiconductor interface.