Investigations on Substrate Temperature-Induced Growth Modes of Organic Semiconductors at Dielectric/semiconductor Interface and Their Correlation with Threshold Voltage Stability in Organic Field-Effect Transistors

Influence of substrate temperature on growth modes of copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) thin films at the dielectric/semiconductor interface in organic field effect transistors (OFETs) is investigated. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging at the interface reveals a change from ‘layer+island’ to “island” growth mode with increasing substrate temperatures, further confirmed by probing the buried interfaces using X-ray reflectivity (XRR) and positron annihilation spectroscopic (PAS) techniques. PAS depth profiling provides insight into the details of molecular ordering while positron lifetime measurements reveal the difference in packing modes of CuPc molecules at the interface. XRR measurements show systematic increase in interface width and electron density correlating well with the change from layer + island to coalesced huge 3D islands at higher substrate temperatures. Study demonstrates the usefulness of XRR and PAS techniques to study growth modes at buried interfaces and reveals the influence of growth mo...