Air-Stable, Hysteresis-Free Organic Complementary Inverters Produced by the Neutral Cluster Beam Deposition Method

Abstract

We designed and realized ideal organic complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) inverters through integration of unipolar p- and n-type organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) produced by the neutral cluster beam deposition (NCBD) method. The two high-performance, top-contact OFETs with multidigitated, long channel-width geometry were based upon hole-transporting pentacene and electron-transporting N,N′-ditridecylperylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic diimide (P13) deposited on poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) modified SiO2 substrates. Due to the well-balanced, high hole and electron mobilities of 0.38 and 0.19 cm2/(V s), low trap densities, and good coupling between p- and n-type OFETs, the hysteresis-free organic CMOS inverters demonstrated sharp inversions and high gains of ∼15 in the first and third quadrants of the voltage transfer curves, and long-term operational stability under ambient conditions.