Characterization of organic thin film transistors with hysteresis and contact effects

Abstract

We propose two procedures to extract information about the trapping processes that occur in organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) that exhibit both contact and hysteresis effects. In particular, the variation of trapped charge during hysteresis cycles is determined by the separate analysis of current–voltage curves for the intrinsic transistor and for the contact region. The extraction of these curves is done with the help of our previous compact model that reproduces the current–voltage characteristics of OTFTs with contact effects. The model is used to fit experimental output characteristics with hysteresis and to extract the parameters of the model, such as the mobility and the threshold voltage. The variation of the threshold voltage with trapped charges during voltage cycling and using existing transistor models results in different sets of parameters needed to reproduce the experimental data. However, not all these parameters have proper physical meanings. In order to find a unique physical solution, the current–voltage curves of the contacts and current–voltage curves of the intrinsic transistor, extracted from the output characteristics measured at the transistor terminals, are separately analyzed. The study of the evolution with the gate voltage of the free-charge density in the contact allows for finding this unique solution. The results of this method are compared with published results that use more elaborate experimental techniques, such as the four-terminal method or transient experiments.