Recent Efforts in Understanding and Improving the Nonideal Behaviors of Organic Field-Effect Transistors

Abstract

Over the past three decades, the mobility of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) has been improved from 10−5 up to over 10 cm2 V−1 s−1, which reaches or has already satisfied the requirements of demanding applications. However, pronounced nonideal behaviors in current–voltage characteristics are commonly observed, which indicates that the reported mobilities may not truly reflect the device properties. Herein, a comprehensive understanding of the origins of several observed nonidealities (downward, upward, double-slope, superlinear, and humped transfer characteristics) is summarized, and how to extract comparatively reliable mobilities from nonideal behaviors in OFETs is discussed. Combining an overview of the ideal and state-of-the-art OFETs, considerable possible approaches are also provided for future OFETs.