Comparison between different architectures of an

electrolyte-gated Organic Thin-Film Transistor

fabricated on flexible Kapton substrates
L. Dumitru, K. Manoli, M. Magliulo and L. Torsi
Department of Chemistry
“Aldo Moro” University, Via Orabona 4, I-70126 Bari, Italy
[email protected]

Abstract—A polyanionic proton conductor, named poly(4- started investigating other insulating materials. Increasing
styrenesulfonic acid) (PSSH), was used to gate an Organic the capacitance (Ci) per area is one way of allowing the
Thin-Film Transistor (OFET) based on p-type poly(2,5-bis(3- transistors to be operated at low voltage. [8, 9] Using high-k
tetradecylthiophen-2-yl)thienol [3,2-b]thiophene) (pBTTT- materials [10] as gate insulators or decreasing the film (e.g.
C14) organic semiconductor. Upon applying a negative gate
TiO2) thickness [9] are other approaches that were used to
bias, a large electric double layer capacitors (EDLCs) are
formed at the gate-PSSH and at the pBTTT-PSSH interfaces lower the operating voltage.
due to the proton migration in the polyelectrolyte. Different There are also other ways of lowering the operating
device configurations are evaluated and their electrical voltage, for example, using an electrolyte (a salt dissolved in
performance along with their implementation on flexible a polymer matrix) to gate a silicon-based transistor. [11] This
Kapton substrates is discussed. idea is not new at all, since the concept was demonstrated
more than two decades ago. [12] The main benefit of using
Keywords—polyelectrolytes; electrolyte-gated Organic Thin- electrolytes, polymer-electrolytes or polyelectrolytes as
Film Transistors; low-voltage; flexible substrates; insulating layer, resides in the large capacitance of these
I. INTRODUCTION materials (20 µF cm-2 to 500 µF cm-2) [13, 14] that permit
the operation at low voltages [13], usually bellow 1 volt and
Organic Thin-Film Transistors (OFETs) are an their compatibility with printed techniques (e.g. roll-to-roll).
important class of electronic devices that have attracted a lot An electrical double layer (EDL) is formed at the
of attention, especially in the last decades. The reason is semiconductor/electrolyte interface [15] involving the ions
mainly due to the fact that they can be used in lightweight, charge separation upon application of a gate bias. The

.
flexible, and low cost electronic devices. [1-4] Applications formation of an EDL confers to the transistor a high current
such as active-matrix logic circuits, [5] radiofrequency throughput and the necessary robustness for electronic
identification tags (RFID) [6] and non-volatile memories [7] applications. [16] Low source and drain contact resistances,
are just few of the domains where the concept behind OFETs [17] versatile architectures, [18] solution processability [19]
can be applied. and the possibility to integrate electrolyte-gated systems in
Typically, an OFET is a three terminal device formed by an applications such as biosensors [20] are other important
electrode, a semiconductor and a dielectric/insulating layer advantages derived from using electrolytes as gating
separating the active semiconductor layer from the gate materials. However, the main drawback of these materials is
electrode. A conducting channel is formed at the interface that the anions present in the electrolyte bulk might penetrate
between the dielectric layer and semiconductor; therefore an into the semiconductor layer causing an electrochemical
optimal interfacial control is required to achieve good doping of the active layer. [21-23] This latter aspect should
electrical performance. The dielectric layer plays a key role be closely regarded before choosing an electrolyte material
in keeping the leakage currents at a minimum value, to gate an OFET,
lowering the power consumption and having a high current
on/off ratio. Therefore, the chemical nature and the electric The group of Magnus Berggren already reported the use
properties of the dielectric influence the OFET of poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid) PSSH as insulating material
performances. [8] A “common” transistor is a device having for OFETs. [13, 24, 25]
a metal oxide layer (e.g. SiO2) as insulator. The main Here, we reported the use of the elicited polyanionic
drawback of these devices is that they require high operating proton conductor material, PSSH, as gating material for a
voltage and the fabrication steps are not always compatible OFET based on pBTTT-C14. A comparison between three
with large-scale production. In order to optimize the costs of different architectures was made and the electrical
fabricating these devices and to lower the operating
voltages, many research groups around the world have

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performances of these devices as well as their C. Chemicals
implementation on flexible substrates were investigated. Poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid) solution, Mw ≈ 75.000, 18 wt.
The novelty of the work resides in the fabrication of % in water, was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich, and was
polyelectrolyte-gated OFETs on flexible Kapton substrates. used as received. The organic semiconductor poly(2,5-bis(3-
Previous studies were carried out using the same tetradecylthiophen-2-yl)thienol [3,2-b]thiophene) (pBTTT-
polyelectrolyte, namely poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid) but on C14) was purchased from Ossila (electronic grade). The
solid SiO2 substrates. For the best of our knowledge this is organic semiconductor solution was prepared using
the first time that this polyelectrolyte was used in a bottom anhydrous 1,2-Dichlorobenzene as solvent (Sigma-Aldrich).
gate, top contact architecture showing good electrical
performances. Three different architectures were investigated D. Electrical Characterization
in order to evaluate the performance of these devices and to
The current-voltage (IDS versus VDS) characteristics Fig. 1
choose the most suitable one for future studies (e.g.
(right) were measured with a semiconductor parameter
implementation of bio-receptors for biosensors. analyzer (Agilent 4155 C). All measurements were made in
ambient air (relative humidity ca. 36%) at room temperature.

II. MATERIALS AND METHODS

A. Device architectures
Three different architectures were investigated in this
study: Bottom-Gate Top-Contacts (BGTC), Top-Gate
Bottom-Contacts (TGBC) and a Planar-Gate configuration
(PG) (Fig. 1). In the last case, the gate electrode is
evaporated as a gold strip in the same step with the source
(S) and drain (D) electrodes.

B. Materials and Methods

The BGTC devices, Fig. 1a, were fabricated on a pre-
patterned Kapton substrate, where a gold strip was defined
by thermal evaporation as the gate (G) electrode. The PSSH
solution was spin coated at room temperature (2000 rpm for
1 minute) resulting in a thick insulating layer. The organic
semiconductor layer (pBTTT-C14) was then spin deposited

.
onto this layer. The source (S) and drain (D) electrodes
where defined onto the active layer by thermal evaporation
through a shadow mask (channel length (L) 200 µm and
channel width (W) 4000 µm).
For the second architecture TGBC, Fig. 1b, the S and D
electrodes (same channel dimensions) were thermally
evaporated through a shadow mask on a clean Kapton
substrate. The pBTTT-C14 was then spin coated onto the
electrodes, followed by a second spinning of the PSSH
solution. A gold G electrode was thermally evaporated at Fig. 1. OFET architectures (left) and the corresponding output
high vacuum through a shadow mask to complete the device. characteristics (right) for a Bottom-Gate Top-Contacts (BGTC) (a), Top-
Gate Bottom-Contacts (TGBC) (b) and Planar-Gate configuration (PG) (c).
Finally for the third OFET configuration, PG, the
pBTTT-C14 solution was spin deposited on a flexible
Kapton substrate, pre-patterned with S and D electrodes. The III. RESULTS AND DISCUSION
G electrode is thermally evaporated in the same step
(perpendicular on the source and drain electrodes) as a gold The flexible polyelectrolyte-gated devices in a Planar-
strip, Fig. 1c. The organic semiconductor film was annealed Gate configuration were fabricated by a straightforward,
at 110 °C for 1 minute on a hot plate. The device was screen-printing compatible procedure. The S, D and G
completed by drop-casting the PSSH on top of the gate and electrodes were deposited by thermal evaporation through a
source/drain electrodes (using a customized Doctor Blade shadow mask, directly on a flexible Kapton substrate, as
deposition process). depicted in Fig. 2.

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 TABLE 1. Electrical performances of the three architectures for the
PSSH-gated OFETs

PSSH-Gated OFETs
OFET Electrical performances reported as average (n = 5)
architecture Field-effect Threshold on/off current
mobility voltage ratio
μ [cm-2V-1s-1] VT [V] Ion/Ioff
BGTC (1.07±0.23) (-0.27±0.01) ~102

TGBC (4.95±1.75) x 10-3 (0.161±0.365) ~101

Fig. 2. Picture of a flexible OFET having a Planar-Gate PG (0.37±0.04) (-0.21±0.07) ~101
configuration (PG).

The field-effect mobility was calculated using equation (2):

The organic semiconductor layer was spin coated, while
the proton conducting PSSH layer was drop casted on top of ( )
the pBTTT-C14 layer. No control over the electrolyte layer
thickness is necessary as the capacitance is determined by
the EDL confined at the dielectric/organic semiconductor where B is the slope extracted from the √ versus VG plot
interface. [26] Also, the position of the gate electrode is and Ci is the capacitance per area of the PSSH layer. [13]
irrelevant since the polyelectrolyte is conductive. [16] The The top contact devices exhibit better I-V characteristics as
advantage of using this particular configuration resides in the compared to bottom contact devices. This behavior can be
fact that the patterning of the S, D and G electrodes can be attributed to a lower carrier injection from source to channel
done in one step, thus making it cost and time efficient. in the case of the bottom contact electrodes.[28]
For the other two configurations additional evaporation
steps are required to define the source and drain electrodes in
the case of BGTC and the top gate electrode for the TGBC IV. CONCLUSIONS
configuration. In this work we have reported the use of a polyanionic
The output characteristics Fig. 1 (right) show significant proton conductor (PSSH) to gate Organic Field-Effect
current modulation at voltages smaller than 1 V. For the Transistors, having different architectures, fabricated on
BGTC architecture the channel current saturates at a drain flexible substrates. A comparison was made for the figures of
bias smaller than the applied gate bias (VG) (e.g. the saturated merit of these devices. Employing a polyelectrolyte
VD, VDsat = −0.5 for VG= −1 V) with a maximum saturation insulating layer eases the fabrication steps, also controlling
current IDsat = −118 µA. the thickness of the insulator is no longer critical since an
EDL is formed when a gate bias is applied, independent of
A similar behavior was observed for a TGBC OFET, the thickness of the PSSH layer. The PG architecture offers a
where a maximum saturation current of IDsat = −3.17 µA was straightforward fabrication approach since the patterning of

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measured for VDsat = −0.5 and a gate bias VG= −2 V. While the source, drain and gate electrodes require only one step.
for the PG configuration a saturation current of 14 µA was
measured for a VDsat = −0.5 and a gate bias VG= −1 V. These The proposed structures where poly(4-styrenesulfonic
high values of the drain current can be associated with the acid ) is used as gating material are promising since
high capacitance of the PSSH layer. The current in the polyelectrolytes act as high-capacitance gate insulators in
saturation regime is given by equation (1): (27) OFETs exhibiting good electrical performance. Moreover,
low voltage operation is achieved which is desirable for bio-
sensing in aqueous/liquid media as well as for integration of
( ) ( )
these devices into flexible circuits that can be powered by
batteries.
where, Ci is the capacitance per unit area of the gate
insulator, µ is the field-effect mobility, and VT is the ACKNOWLEDGMENT
threshold voltage.
The “Gas sensors on flexible substrates for wireless
The electrical figures of merit of the PSSH-gated OFETs, applications-FlexSmell” project, SEVENTH
mobility (μ), threshold voltage (VT) and on/off current ratio FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME FP7-People-ITN-2008
(Ion/Ioff) were extracted from the characteristics in the under Grant agreement no. 238454, is acknowledged for the
saturation regime and are depicted in Table 1. The reported financial support of this work.
values are expressed as the average over 5 replicates and
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