Organic Thin-Film Transistor

Ahmad El Kassem, Ahmad Hamdan, Ghassan Salha

Department of Electrical Engineering
American University of Sharjah
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
AbstractResearch regarding organic thin-film transistors
has been increasing over the past decade and so as the progress in
development made in organic thin-film transistor. This paper will
deal briefly with the most important aspects and features of this
kind of thin-film transistor. It will shed light on the composition
and geometry of the organic thin-film transistor and how the way
it is made helps in its functioning so as the materials used. Then it
will explain the electronic characteristics regarding the organic
thin-film transistors from its basic operations to the explanation
and development of the equations regarding the transistor, hence
getting a better understanding of the voltage-current relationship
and characteristics. We will also talk briefly about other
structures that help in improving the functionality of the
transistor. Lastly a conclusion will be made in regards of
limitations and the future outlook this domain has.

the OTFT that is composed of 3 main parts: source, drain and

gate electrodes; a dielectric layer; and the active
semiconductor layer. The structure shown in Figure 1 is the
top contact OTFT, which are relatively superior to the other
structure of OTFT called the bottom contact; they are superior
because some experts suggest that it is a result of reduced
contact resistance between the organic layer and the electrode
because of an increase in the area of charge injection [1].
Figure 1 will also show the bottom contact OTFT.

I. INTRODUCTION
Over the past 10 years a remarkable progress has
been made in the development of thin film transistors (TFTs)
using organic substances, mainly organic semiconductors. The
commercial silicon TFTs now faces a challenge from the ever
so growing organic TFTs as more and more organic-based
devices are gradually entering the market such as electronic
paper, sensors and memory devices. Organic Thin-Film
Transistors (OTFTs) are rather interesting because of several
factors that have motivated engineers to proceed with their
researches. One of these factors is the cost. OTFTs are rather
cheap, they are cost and use efficient therefore they strike a
big deal in terms of challenging, although they wane in
comparison to the commercial TFTs as the latters
performance exceeds that of the OTFT. The other factor that
motivates researchers is application diversity, since OTFTs can
be used at low temperatures, meaning they can be used with
flexible plastic substrates. A great deal of expectations are
made of OTFTs, one of these expectations is that the
substrates allow for displays to be displayed on flexible
surfaces rather than rigid ones, which means a piece of
flexible plastic coated with OTFT material could result into a
display channel that can handled like a paper, using that
changes in newspapers, magazines and comics will be seen
and the opportunities are endless.
II. GEOMETRY AND COMPOSITION OF OTFT
A. The Structure of the OTFT
The structure of the OTFT describes the geometry and how
the functional parts are placed; it is comparable in certain
respects to its inorganic equivalent in the basic design and also
in function. A basic schematic is shown in Figure 1 that shows

Figure 1. Top contact and bottom contact of OTFT structures.

The structure of the OTFT is also defined by the gate position
and it could be either on top or on the bottom. The majority of
the OTFT have their gates built at the bottom since the
performance is better that way.
B. A Material Science Overview of the OTFT
The overview will talk about the materials in the organic
semiconductor used in the OTFT as well as the gate insulator
materials.
1.

First the material composition of the organic

semiconductor. There are two kinds, the
conjugated polymers and the conjugated small

molecules. Conjugated polymers are made

functional with flexible side chains, these
polymers are then soluble and thin films can be
made by solution-based techniques such as spin
coating, inkjet printing and gravure. An example
of this material is alkyl-substituted polythiophene
poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT; Figure 2) [2].

region has an area with width W and length L. A thin-film

transistor schematic is given by in figure 3.

Figure 3. A schematic of the thin-film transistor with a

channel having width W and length L.

Figure 2. The material called alkyl-substituted polythiophene

poly(3-hexylthiophene)
2.

The second material composition will be that of

the gate insulator. In the transistor channel charge
transport takes place at the gate insulator-semi
conductor intermix. In order to enhance carrier
localization and reduce the charge carrier mobility
through using high-permittivity gate-insulators
that can create energetic disorder. Thus using lowpermittivity gate insulator material will probably
improve the performance of the OTFT. Examples
of low-permittivity gate
insulators are
polyethylene
(PE)
or
benzocyclobutene
derivatives (BCB) [3].

The source terminal is relatively grounded therefore it will

be acting as the reference for the other voltages applied at the
gate terminal and drain terminal. The gate-source voltage
(VGS) is the potential difference between the source voltage
and the gate voltage. Moreover, the potential difference
between the drain voltage and source voltage is called the
drain-source voltage (VDS). Further the transistor has 3
currents positively flowing into it respectively in from the
source, drain and gate electrodes (IS,ID and IG), and according
to Kirchhoffs current law, summing up these 3 currents will
equal zero.
It was previously mentioned, the stack consisting of the
semiconductor, insulator and gate can be seen as a capacitor.
An equation is used for this capacitor and it calculates the
capacitance per unit area, Ci, of a dielectric gate-insulator, this
equation is
(1)

III. OTFTS ELECTRONIC CHARACTERISTICS

A thin-film transistor is a special kind of field-effect
transistor where the thin-film transistor insulator is dipped in
an insulating substrate such as plastic foil or glass. Practically
all the OTFT that have been made take the configuration of
their relevant thin-film transistor. The first OTFT was shown
in 1984 and it had an electrolyte as the gating substrate
medium [4]. To start off with the OTFTs characteristics we
will explain its basic operation and the transistors equations.
A. Basic Operation
A normal thin-film transistor is made with three terminals
and the thin-film transistor consists of a semiconductor layer
that is thin and it is separated from the gate electrode with a
layer of a material that is electronically insulating, this layer is
usually called the gate insulator. This group of materials has a
capacitor in them which is very important in the functioning of
the transistor. In addition, the source electrode and drain
electrode are directly in contact with the semiconductor. The
channel is region between the source and drain electrode, this

Where 0 is the vacuum permittivity, k is the relative

permittivity and d is the thickness of the gate layer.
The applied gate voltage has to exceed a voltage so
that the channel could start conducting. That voltage is hence
called the threshold voltage VT. The threshold voltage should
be zero in the case of OTFTs, but it is non-zero since that is
ideally hard to achieve [5]. Therefore the mobile charge Q per
unit area can be written as
Q = Ci (VGS VT)

(2)

This is an equation used when VDS equals to zero where the

semiconductor is grounded. But when a voltage is applied at
the drain electrode, a potential voltage V will form that will be
a function of x. It will have the value 0 at x=0 and V DS at x=L
thus it will be a gradually increasing function. This equation,
charge density as a function of the position in the channel, is

Q(x) = Ci (VGS VT V(x))

(3)
Consider that the voltage applied at the gate electrode,
which will be the VGS, will be larger than the threshold voltage
VT. This will lead the charge carriers to form a uniform layer
in the channel of the transistor as seen in figure 4a. When we
apply a drain voltage VDS it will lead to, according equation
(3), a gradually decreasing charge density to the drain. The
voltage of the drain will be very small therefore the resistance
of the channel will remain unchanged. In this case the drain
current ID and the drain voltage VD will be linearly
proportional as seen in figure 4a; this will be the definition of
the linear regime of the OTFT.

semiconductor is not taken into consideration since it is

assumed to have a high resistivity that does not contribute to
the net drain current ID. Thus the drain current at position x is
said to be
ID(x) = W Q(x) Ex(x)

(4)

Where is the mobility of the charge carrier of the

semiconductor and Ex(x) is the electric field in relation to
position x. The drain current is constant throughout channel
thus another equation that is

(5)
In the linear regime, where the drain voltage is less than V GS
VT , equation 5 can be simplified to

(6)
The field effect mobility can also be obtained in this regime
and that is by using the derivative of equation 6 and that
equation is

(7)
The drain current at the saturation regime is obtained when
VDS = VGSVT is inserted in equation 5, thus we obtain

Figure 4. Drain voltage versus drain current in multiple cases.

When we increase the drain voltage, it will lead to
higher channel resistance due to the decrease in induced
charge carriers. A decreasing curve will start to appear in the
VDS-ID characteristics. Eventually the drain voltage VD will
equal the VGSVT and then the charge concentration will
become zero at the drain electrode as seen in figure 4b. The
position where the charge carrier in the channel becomes zero
is called the pinch point P. Increasing the drain voltage even
more (VDS>VGSVT) will move the point P closer to the
source and the distance between P and the source will be
smaller becoming L as seen in figure 4c. The drain current
IDsat will essentially remain constant since the transistors are of
negligible sizes therefore the point P and length L wont
change much. When VD is greater than VDsat=VGSVT, that
area is called the saturation regime [6].
B. Transistor Equations
The current-voltage characteristics can be calculated
in the cases of ideal OTFT. The so-called gradual channel
approximation states that the applied drain voltage induces a
longitudinal electric field smaller than the transverse electric
field induced by the gate voltage applied. This statement holds
up as long as the thickness of the gate is smaller than the
thickness of the channel. The mobility is assumed constant
over the different range of charge concentrations and electric
fields, which is generally true. The only thing taken into
consideration is the drift of charges. The bulk of the

(8)
The field effect mobility in this regime is then the derivative
of equation 8 will be

(9)
One of the most important parameters for the transistor is the
transconductance gm. It describes how the gate voltage
modulates the drain current, and gm= ID/VGS (VDS =
constant). The gm in the linear regime and saturation regime
are given by

(10)
(11)
These equations describe the behavior of the transistor when
the gate voltage is greater than the threshold voltage [6].
Figure 5 shows the two current-voltage
characteristics of the OTFT. In figure 5a we see the drain
voltage versus drain current, this graph is called the output
characteristics graph and it has the linear region where V DS is
low and the saturation region where VDS is high. The line that
is dashed indicates the saturation onset. In figure 5b we see the

transfer characteristics; it is a graph that has the gate voltage

versus drain current. Here the on/off current ratio is what is
important. When the gate voltage is small, the drain current is
very small, this region has a current limited by charging
currents and leakage. This is the off-state of the transistor. The
drain current will start to increase exponentially with a certain
slope of 1/S between the voltage VSO, this voltage is called the
on-set voltage where the current starts to increase, and the
voltage VT.

B. Vertical Channel Structure

The vertical channel structure was the structure made to
face all the difficulties faced in the normal gate structure such
as morphological disorders of thin film, low mobility of
charge carriers and long channel length [8]. This structure is
re-organized in order to reduce the driving voltage without
risking the output voltage and that is done by shortening the
channel length, a simple schematic of the vertical channel
structure is shown in figure 7

Figure 7. A simple schematic of the vertical channel structure

Figure 5. Current-voltage characteristics, where in (a) it
shows the VDS versus the ID and in (b) we see the VGS versus
the ID.
Above the threshold voltage is the on-state of the transistor,
thus the on/off current ratio can be easily determined from the
graph in figure 5b where it is the ratio between the highest
drain current versus the lowest drain current.

IV. OTHER DESIGNS OF THE OTFT AND THEIR FUNCTIONALITY

In this paper we dealt with the most common type of
OTFT design which is the single gate structure, we will
discuss two other types of structures briefly and they are the
dual gate structure and the vertical channel structure.
A. Dual Gate Structure
From its name you can predict that the OTFT will be
having two gates which mean itll have two gate voltages and
since it has two gates it will also have two insulators. The dual
gate structure performs better than the single gate structure
since in terms of mobility, sub-threshold slope and on/off
current ratio it is better [7], a simple schematic of the dual gate
structure is seen in figure 6

V. CONCLUSION
This paper dealt with various aspects of the OTFT.
The OTFT faces multiple limitations such as low mobility and
constraints as well from the fabrication of the materials to the
devices physics level. Currently the OTFT is not suited for
high speed applications and is still yet under improvement but
due to research blooming a positive future outlook is held in
mind. The present work brings out only the smallest potential
of what these devices can do and how flexible they can be.
Aside from the use of the OTFT in displays they can be even
be used on the medical levels and so many more areas of
development rise day by day.

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Figure 6. Schematic of the dual gate structure.

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