Thin film transistors fabricated by evaporating pentacene under electric field

Organizing the pentacene molecules with respect to the substrate is an essential prerequisite for achieving high field effect mobility in organic thin film transistors. Here, we report electrical characteristics of bottom gate, top contact Sin++/SiO2/pentacene/gold thin film transistors using electric field assisted thermal evaporation of pentacene. We find that the field assisted devices exhibit a five-fold enhancement in the field effect mobility, along with improvement in the saturation current as compared with a standard device. Simulation of electric field distribution in the substrate-electrode arrangement due to the application of external voltage during pentacene deposition shows an existence of a non-uniform electric field in the bottom gate top contact configuration and hence another configuration that avoids metal before pentacene deposition is proposed. The observed improvement in the transistor characteristics of field assisted device is explained by ab-initio calculation of anisotropy in the polarizability of isolated pentacene molecule, followed by an estimate of molecules that would align due to the field. Furthermore, the preferential molecular alignment in field deposited pentacene films is confirmed using X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy.