A process for the fabrication of integrated circuits based on bottom-gate, top-contact organic thin-film transistors (TFTs) with channel lengths as short as 1 µm on flexible plastic substrates has been developed. In this process, all TFT layers (gate electrodes, organic semiconductors, source/drain contacts) are patterned with the help of high-resolution silicon stencil masks, thus eliminating the need for subtractive patterning and avoiding the exposure of the organic semiconductors to potentially harmful organic solvents or resists. The TFTs employ a low-temperature-processed gate dielectric that is sufficiently thin to allow the TFTs and circuits to operate with voltages of about 3 V. Using the vacuum-deposited small-molecule organic semiconductor 2,9-didecyl-dinaphtho[2,3-b:2’,3’-f]thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (C10 DNTT), TFTs with an effective field-effect mobility of 1.2 cm2/Vs, an on/off current ratio of 107, a width-normalized transconductance of 1.2 S/m (with a standard deviation of 6%), and a signal propagation delay (measured in 11-stage ring oscillators) of 420 nsec per stage at a supply voltage of 3 V have been obtained. To our knowledge, this is the first time that megahertz operation has been achieved in flexible organic transistors at supply voltages of less than 10 V. In addition to flexible ring oscillators, we have also demonstrated a 6-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) in a binary-weighted current-steering architecture, based on TFTs with a channel length of 4 µm and fabricated on a glass substrate. This DAC has a supply voltage of 3.3 V, a circuit area of 2.6 × 4.6 mm2, and a maximum sampling rate of 100 kS/s.
Syntheses, characterizations, and applications to organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) of four isomeric
naphthodithiophenes (NDTs) are reported. The NDT cores are utilized to both small-molecular organic semiconductors
for vapor-processed OFETs and polymer semiconductors for solution processed OFETs. For the vapor-processed OFETs,
the linear-shaped NDT gives the best material showing mobility of up to 1.5 cm2 V-1 s-1, whereas for the polymer-based
solution-processed OFETs, the angular-shaped NDT gives better results with mobility as high as 0.77 cm2 V-1 s-1. To
understand the different trends in the mobility of the two systems, the packing structure and intermolecular orbital
interaction are studied.
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