A Pulse-Biasing Small-Signal Measurement Technique Enabling 40 MHz Operation of Vertical Organic Transistors

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Abstract

Organic/polymer transistors can enable the fabrication of large-area flexible circuits. However, these devices are inherently temperature sensitive due to the strong temperature dependence of charge carrier mobility, suffer from low thermal conductivity of plastic substrates, and are slow due to the low mobility and long channel length (L). Here we report a new, advanced characterization circuit that within around ten microseconds simultaneously applies an accurate large-signal pulse bias and a small-signal sinusoidal excitation to the transistor and measures many high-frequency parameters. This significantly reduces the self-heating and therefore provides data at a known junction temperature more accurate for fitting model parameters to the results, enables small-signal characterization over >10 times wider bias I-V range, with ~105 times less bias-stress effects. Fully thermally-evaporated vertical permeable-base transistors with physical L = 200 nm fabricated using C60 fullerene semiconductor are characterized. Intrinsic gain up to 35 dB, and record transit frequency (unity current-gain cutoff frequency, fT) of 40 MHz at 8.6 V are achieved. Interestingly, no saturation in fT - I and transconductance (gm - I) is observed at high currents. This paves the way for the integration of high-frequency functionalities into organic circuits, such as long-distance wireless communication and switching power converters.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number7643
JournalScientific Reports
Volume8
Publication statusPublished - 16 May 2018
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 29769651
ORCID /0000-0002-9773-6676/work/142247056
ORCID /0000-0002-4230-8228/work/142251408

Keywords

Research priority areas of TU Dresden

ASJC Scopus subject areas