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Charge transport in polymer semiconductors

This work is focused on the electrical characterization of polymer field effect transistors. Conventional method of characterizing organic polymeric semiconductors includes field-effect mobility measurement and optical time-of-flight measurement of drift mobility. In this dissertation we have introduced a new method that combines the advantages of both these methods. It involves the injection of carriers at the source of a transistor using a voltage pulse followed by their subsequent extraction at the drain. The delay between the two events is used to extract the velocity of carriers. The electronic time-of-flight method is a fast, simple and direct method to determine the charge transport properties of the semiconductor. In addition it also presents itself as a source of information for understanding injection into the semiconductor and determining the trap distribution. Theoretical modeling of transport was performed. Simulation was also done to include effect of non-idealities that are forbiddingly difficult to be solved analytically. Time of flight measurements of drift mobility were performed in organic transistors with varying semiconductors and dielectrics. It was observed that the electronic time-of-flight mobility lies in the range of the field-effect mobility. Variation in drift mobility was also observed with the applied pulse voltage. This was explained to be caused due to a combination of the increase in mobility with gate voltage and the increase in drift mobility at high lateral fields. Finally mobility measurements were done on transistors with varying channel length and it was concluded that the mobility increases proportional to the exponential square root of the electric field. Finally a derivation of the pulse voltage method is discussed that involves the use of a small signal electronic impulse instead of a large signal voltage pulse. It was shown that this method could not be used to calculate the drift velocity in a polymer transistor as it is valid only for low conductivity materials whose dielectric relaxation time is lower that the transit time of the carriers injected.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/3418
Date28 August 2008
CreatorsBasu, Debarshi, 1980-
ContributorsDodabalapur, Ananth, 1963-
Source SetsUniversity of Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Formatelectronic
RightsCopyright © is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.

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