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Improving bias-stress stability of p-type organic field-effect transistors by suppressing electron injection

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Abstract

Bias-stress instability has been a challenging problem, severely hindering the practical applications of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). In this work, we demonstrate a universal strategy to improve the bias-stress stability of p-type OFETs by modifying the source/drain electrode with wide bandgap organic semiconductors. In the strategy, a type-I energy level alignment is established at the organic/organic interface. Thanks to the high lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of wide bandgap semiconductors, the interfacial barrier at the metal electrode/organic semiconductor interface is risen, and thereby suppressing the electron injection from the drain electrode into the organic semiconducting channel. It is borne out that, the bias-stress instability of p-type OFETs is ascribed to an electron-injection-induced hole neutralization in the organic semiconducting solid films. By increasing the interfacial barrier, the hole neutralization can be eased due to the suppression of electron injection, and thereby the bias-stress stability of OFETs is improved, e.g., elimination of threshold voltage shift, and inhibition of working current attenuation under long-term device operation. A series of physical models are proposed to quantitatively analyze the dynamics of hole neutralization and the bias-stress stability relative to energy level alignment and interfacial electron-injection barrier. It is revealed that the electron injection across the interfacial barrier obeys a Fowler–Nordheim tunneling theory. By using wide bandgap organic semiconductors with high LUMO for the electrode modification, the electron-injection efficiency is reduced effectively, and thereby the bias-stress stability of p-type OFETs can be improved significantly.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the funding from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No., 62164012, 11774304, 61904159), and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Yunnan Province (Grant No. 202101AT070025). We gratefully acknowledge the experimental support from Key Laboratory of Yunnan Provincial Higher Education Institutions for Optoelectronics Device Engineering.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, School of Physics and Astronomy, Yunnan University, Kunming, 650504, China

    Chunhua Guo, Zhenxin Yang, Lingping Qin, Jiaxiu Man, Tao Zhang, Deng-Ke Wang, Zheng-Hong Lu & Qiang Zhu

  2. National Center for International Research on Photoelectric and Energy Materials, Yunnan University, Kunming, 650504, China

    Deng-Ke Wang, Zheng-Hong Lu & Qiang Zhu

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 3E4, Canada

    Zheng-Hong Lu

Authors
  1. Chunhua Guo
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  2. Zhenxin Yang
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  3. Lingping Qin
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  4. Jiaxiu Man
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  5. Tao Zhang
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  7. Zheng-Hong Lu
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  8. Qiang Zhu
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Device preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by CG, ZY, LQ, JM, TZ, DKW, ZHL and QZ. The first draft of the manuscript was written by CG and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Qiang Zhu.

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Guo, C., Yang, Z., Qin, L. et al. Improving bias-stress stability of p-type organic field-effect transistors by suppressing electron injection. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 3726–3737 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-021-07564-0

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