Monolithic integration of OFETs driving organic light emitting diodes

Organic field effect transistors are expected to be applicable for low-cost, large-area electronic applications, e.g. the incorporation as active-matrix into displays based on organic light emitting diodes (OLED). There are two major challenges which have to be tackled. As the low charge carrier mobility allows only for comparatively low saturation currents, the ratio of channel width and length has to increase by several orders of magnitude, compared to poly-Si-technology. Furthermore, as organic semiconductor devices usually degrade upon exposure to solvents, standard photolithography cannot be applied once the organic materials have been deposited. Therefore, the definition of single pixels has to occur before the deposition of organic materials. We prepared OFETs employing a bottom-Al-gate, an 50 nm thick anodized Al-oxide gate dielectric and a inter-digital drain-source-structure (Au), topped with 30 nm of pentacene as active layer. By applying an inter-digital structure we increased the W/L-ratio to 4340. For the given configuration, a saturation current of 4 mA could be observed at -20 V drain-source- and -20 V gate-source-voltage. The drain-source-contacts enclosed a predefined ITO-anode shorted to drain and acting as OLED-anode. For preventing shortcuts between the OLED-cathode and the OFET, poly-vinyl-alcohol (PVOH) was spin-coated from an aqueous solution and structurized by photolithography. When the OFET characteristics were measured afterwards the field-effect- mobility dropped by two orders of magnitude but recovered due to desorption of residual water. Afterwards, the organic layers and a Al/LiF-cathode were deposited. The area covered by the OLED was 1.33mm 2 . Applying an operating bias of 11 V between cathode and source, allows for switching of the OLED by changing the gate-source-voltage from +2.5 V to -5 V. The on-state-brightness is 850 cd/m 2 and the on-off-ratio 950. Considering a realistic filling factor of 40% the values observed may be sufficient for active-matrix display-applications.