Improved pentacene device characteristics with sol-gel SiO₂ dielectric films

The interfacial interactions between semiconductors and gate dielectrics have a profound influence on the device characteristics of field effect transistors (FETs). This paper reports on the concept of introducing a sol-gel SiO₂ as inorganic capping layer to significantly improve device characteristics of pentacene-based FETs. The smoother film surfaces of sol-gel SiO₂ (1.9 Å root-mean-square) induced larger pentacene grain sizes, and led to hole mobilities of 1.43 cm²/Vs, on-off ratio of 10⁷, and a subthreshold swing of 102 mV/decade when operating at -20 V. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.