Accurate characterization of organic thin film transistors in the presence of gate leakage current

The presence of gate leakage through polymer dielectric in organic thin film transistors (OTFT) prevents accurate estimation of transistor characteristics especially in subthreshold regime. To mitigate the impact of gate leakage on transfer characteristics and allow accurate estimation of mobility, subthreshold slope and on/off current ratio, a measurement technique involving simultaneous sweep of both gate and drain voltages is proposed. Two dimensional numerical device simulation is used to illustrate the validity of the proposed technique. Experimental results obtained with Pentacene/PMMA OTFT with significant gate leakage show a low on/off current ratio of similar to 10(2) and subthreshold is 10 V/decade obtained using conventional measurement technique. The proposed technique reveals that channel on/off current ratio is more than two orders of magnitude higher at similar to 10(4) and subthreshold slope is 4.5 V/decade. Copyright 2011 Author(s). This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. [doi:10.1063/1.3657786]