Operating mechanism of the organic metal-semiconductor field-effect transistor (OMESFET)

¹ LPICM, École polytechnique, CNRS, 91128 Palaiseau, France
² CEA Saclay, DSM/IRAMIS/SPCSI/LCSI, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France

^a e-mail: chang-hyun.kim@polytechnique.edu

Received: 21 March 2011
Accepted: 12 September 2011
Published online: 23 November 2011

Abstract

Organic metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors (OMESFETs) were fabricated with a polycrystalline organic semiconductor (pentacene) and characterized in order to systematically analyze their operation mechanism. Impedance measurements confirmed full depletion of the thick pentacene film (1 μm) due to the low doping concentration of unintentional doping (typically less than 10¹⁴ cm⁻³). The necessity of developing a specific device model for OMESFET is emphasized as the classical (inorganic) MESFET theory based on the depletion modulation is not applicable to a fully-depleted organic semiconductor. By means of joint electrical measurements and numerical simulation, it is pointed out that the gate voltage controls the bulk distribution of injected carriers, so that the competition between the gate and drain currents is critical for determining the operation mode. Finally, the geometrical effect is investigated with comparing a number of transistors with various channel widths and lengths.