Pentacene organic thin-film transistors for circuit and display applications

We have fabricated organic thin-film transistors (TFT's) using the small-molecule polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon pentacene as the active material. Devices were fabricated on glass substrates using low-temperature ion-beam deposited silicon dioxide as the gate dielectric, ion-beam deposited palladium for the source and drain contacts, and vacuum-evaporated pentacene to form the active layer. Excellent electrical characteristics were obtained, including carrier mobility as large as 0.6 cm(2)/V-s, on/off current ratio as large as 10(8), and subthreshold slope as low as 0.7 V/dec, all record values for organic transistors fabricated on nonsingle-crystal substrates.