Passivation of trap states in unpurified and purified C60 and the influence on organic field-effect transistor performance

We investigate trap-state passivation by addition of ultra-low amounts of n-dopants in organic field-effect transistors (OFET) made of as-received and purified fullerene C60. We find a strong dependence of the OFET threshold voltage (VT) on the density of traps present in the layer. In the case of the unpurified material, VT is reduced from 17.9 V to 4.7 V upon trap passivation by a dopant:C60 ratio of ∼10−3, while the Ion/off current ratio remains high. This suggests that ultra-low doping can be used to effectively compensate impurity and defect-related traps.