Role of mesoscopic molecular organization in organic-based thin film transistors

Organic-based thin film transistors have been realized from various organic conjugated materials, which can be gathered into two categories, according to the mechanism describing charge transport. In conjugated polymers and amorphous materials, occurrence of a variable range hopping mechanism leads to a direct relationship between doping level, conductivity and carrier mobility, which explains the difficulty for achieving materials possessing, at the same time, a high mobility and a low conductivity. On the other hand, the trap-limited mechanism of charge transport in conjugated oligomers allows a distinct control of carrier mobility and conductivity. Carrier mobility in thin films of conjugated oligomers can be increased by lowering the concentration of grain boundaries, which can be readily achieved by imposing long range structural ordering of oligomer molecules. Thin films of oligomer with a liquid crystal-like structure have thus been realized, using a self-assembly approach, which presents a mobility close to that of a single crystal of this oligomer. On the other hand, conductivity of these oligomers can be decreased by controlling the purity of these materials. High mobility and low conductivity values can thus be achieved with conjugated oligomers, allowing the realization of organic thin-film transistors presenting characteristics close to those of amorphous-silicon based ones. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.