Charge transfer and trapping properties in polymer gate dielectrics for non-volatile organic field-effect transistor memory applications

We investigate here charge transfer and trapping characteristics of various chargeable polymer dielectric layers. polystyrene (PS), poly(4-vinyl naphthalene) (PVN), and amorphous fluoropolymer (Teflon (R) AF) in non-volatile pentacene field-effect transistor (FET) memory devices. Non-volatile memory properties, i.e., the degree of threshold voltage (V-Th) shifts (memory window), the programming and erasing bias, and the retention time, strongly depended on the selection of a charge storage layer. due to its electronic and dielectric properties. The pentacene FETs with PVN or PS showed reversible positive and negative V-Th shifts by an application of external gate bias. In Teflon (R) AF device, most significant positive V-Th shift was obtained indicating a efficient electron injection whereas showed inefficient erasing characteristics via hole injection and storing due to a high electronegative properties of fluorine units in the dielectric. This result indicates importance of a selection of the chargeable polymer dielectric to obtain efficient organic non-volatile memory with a long retention time. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.