State of the Art Report on Organic Complementary Inverters

Anupama S1, Prashanth G R2, N M Renukappa 3

1, 2
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
National Institute of Technology, Goa,
3
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysuru

E-mail: 1anupama.shivamurthy@gmail.com, 2grprashu@gmail.com

3
renunijagal@gmail.com,

The basic building block for logic circuits are the



Abstract - Over the past few decades, among the

semiconductor devices, field effect transistor has had a
huge influence on technological progress. The
development of this device is a driving force in solid state
physics. For decades, semiconductor science has been
focusing on silicon based devices. Silicon chip production
is complex and expensive and therefore alternative
materials like organic semiconductors have gained
importance in recent years. One among the important
applications of OTFTs is the complementary inverter
circuit. Organic inverters face few challenges like large
voltage dessipation, low propagation delay, low noise
margin and stability. Thus this paper introduces a
research survey on different types of approaches used for
fabrication of organic inverters in recent years to
improve the device performance. Finally, the paper is
ended up with a conclusion and futuristic scope of the
research survey.
I. INTRODUCTION
Organic electronics is the study of material science
dealing with design, synthesis, characterization of
organic molecules that show opto-electronic
properties [1]. Inorganic semiconductors such as
silicon was considered as the main support of the
semiconductor industry until conducting polymers
were discovered which served the purpose as active
materials. The performance of these organic
materials were very inferior until new processing
techniques were used to change its properties. Ease
in manufacturing and low cost of organic devices
have attracted them to become commercialized [2-
7]. They are used to make devices that are
transparent, flexible and cheap. The most commonly
used organic semiconductors are pentacene,
thiophene, oligomers, regioregular polythiophene.
The devices fabricated using organic
semiconductors are organic light emitting diodes
( OLED ), field effect transistors ( OFET ), organic
lasers and solar cells [8-12].

CMOS inverters [13-15]. The face off in the
complementary circuits is choosing P-type and N-
type organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) that
match in performance. Also OTFTs lack in suitable
conductive material that enhance the device
performance. The operating characteristics of
OTFTs are governed by the boundary conditions
imposed by the device structure such as interfaces
and contacts instead of the properties of the
semiconductor material [16]. Therefore the
performance of OTFTs is often limited. The search
of materials for N-channel and P-channel transistors
is a major area of research [17-19]. Various
dimensional parameters, materials and performance
of different TFTs used in the inverter circuits are
discussed. This paper introduces an research survey
on the current state of the art in the organic inverter
circuits. The paper is outlined with subsections like
essentials of OTFT inverters (Section 2), review of
existing researches in organic inverters (Section 3),
challenges faced by organic inverters (Section 4).
Finally in Section 5 the conclusive points of the
survey paper are given with futuristic scope .
II. ESSENTIALS OF ORGANIC INVERTERS
OFET inverters are basic building blocks for
integrated circuits. Figure 1 shows the schematic of
the complementary inverter.
VDD
A Y

GND

Fig 1: Complementary Inverter
At first, most of the OTFT inverters were designed
using only P-type transistors since the mobility of
holes is much greater than the mobility of electrons.
Inverters with only P-type show operational
limitations of large circuits due to low noise margin
and parameter variations. Later organic inverters
were designed which employed P-type transistor
with N-type or inorganic transistor. Inverters
having both P and N-type transistors have reported
to have much more advantages than the inverters
having only P-type or N-type. Many works has
been done to improve noise margin, propagation
delay, mobility and mainly the stability of organic
inverters [20]. Especially N-type organic transistors
are not that stable when exposed to air. High
contact resistance can decrease the switching speed
in the devices. Both the transistor types ie N and P-
type can be fabricated on a single substrate and
then electrically connected. For the inverter to
perform well both N-type and P-type mobilities
should be comparable . The work function of the
electrode should match with Highest Occupied
Molecular Orbital (HOMO) level of P-type and
Lowest Unoccupied Molecular Orbital (LUMO)
level of N-type. Due to the distinctive difference in
the HOMO and LUMO levels of organic
semiconductors, a metal with a high work function
is favored for hole injection into HOMO levels
while a metal with a low function work is favored
for electron injection into LUMO levels [21,22].
From literature review it is noted that constructing
a complementary inverter is technically complex
because both P and N-channel transistors are
required to be patterned onto a common substrate
in a desired alignment to each other.
III. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
A survey on the electrical performance of organic
inverters covering the device stucture, material
system and processing methods are discussed in
this section
Kazuki Hizu, Tsuyoshi Sekitani, Takao Someya,
and Joe Otsuki [23] have constructed organic
complementary inverters using double gate
structures to reduce the operating voltage of the
device. They have reported that the double gate
structures have control over the threshold voltage
of P and N-type independently. For their device
they have used P-type pentacene, N-type
fluoroalkyl naphthalenetetracarboxylic di-imide, Au
for electrodes and parylene as dielectric. The
channel widths of the P and N-type FETs are
120µm and 500µm respectively while the channel
lengths are 50µm for both the P and N-type FETs.
The mobilities reported for P and N-type transistors
are 0.18 and 0.09 cm2 /Vs respectively. The
operating voltage is obtained around 5v.
Min Suk Oh, D. K. Hwang, Kimoon Lee, Won Jun
Choi, Jae Hoon Kim, Seongil Im and Seungjun Lee
[24] have worked on the hybrid inverter. They have
used inorganic pentacene for P-type and organic
ZnO for N-type. Since the mobility of N-type
organic transistor is very low and they are not
much stable, they have used inorganic transistor for
P-type. They have used thermal evaporation for thin
film deposition. By using Al2O3/SiO2 double layered
oxide as dielectric, Al and Au as electrodes for N
and P-type respectively has resulted with mobilities
upto 1.03cm2/VS for P-type and 1.12cm2/VS for N-
type. The channel dimensions W/L are same for
both the transistors ie., 500µm/90µm. They have
achieved a voltage gain around 26 for this device.
Sarita Yadav and Subhasis Ghosh [25] have
fabricated organic complementary inverter with P-
channel using CuPc and N-channel using F16CuPc
with 50µm length and 3mm width channel. Thermal
evaporation was used at 90ºC for depositing the
active materials. SiO2 dielectric layer was used as
gate electrode and Cu metal as source/drain for
both type of OTFTs. The work function of Cu is
nearly equal to the HOMO of CuPc and LUMO of
F16CuPc . Hence they have used it as source/drain
electrodes for both type of OTFTs which
showed mobilities of 1.27x10 -3cm2/Vs and
-4 2
3.30x10 cm /Vs for P and N-type respectively.
Voltage transfer characteristics of complementary
inverter have resulted in high noise margins and
switching voltage around VDD/2 with a maximum
gain in the order of 20. A single metal electrode
has reduced the fabrication cost of inverters by
avoiding two step patterning process for metal
electrodes.
Jin Jeon, Boris Murmann and Zhenan Bao [26]
demonstrated P-type only OTFTs on a plastic
substrate by vacuum depositing the pentacene.
They have used PVA as gate dielectric because of
its high k(εr = 8.4) and Al, Au for gate and
source/drain electrodes. UV crosslinker is used for
interconnecting the transistors as it could be done
without any photolithography step. The transistors
with W/L = 5000 μm / 100 μm resulted in an
average carrier mobility of 0.48cm2/Vs and an
average voltage gain of 14 . They have shown that
by adopting bootstrapped structure better results
are obtained than ordinary P-type only circuits.
Xiao-Hong Zhang, William Potscavage, Seungkeun
Choi and Bernard Kippelen [27] have worked on
flexible organic complementary inverters in top
contact configuration using pentacene and C60 as
active semiconductors fabricated on a plastic
substrate. They used Ti as common gate, Au for P-
type and Ca for N-type as source/drain electrodes.
they have used top contact approach and e-beam
evaporation for depositing the electrodes. To
control the interfacial properties between the
dielectric and the active layer, polysterene is coated
on the dielectric surface. The W/L of P and N-type
transistors are 4030µm/70µm and 1030µm/70µm
respectively. Individual transistors as well as
inverters have shown good operational stability
with negligible hysteresis. The threshold voltages
are comparable for P-channel pentacene and N-
channel C60 organic field-effect transistors. Noise
margins larger than 80% of the maximum
theoretical values were obtained at a supply voltage
VDD as low as 3V. A high dc gain of 180 was
achieved at VDD=5 V. They have reported that
inverters operated at 3V and demonstrated good
mechanical stability when tested after bending
under both tensile and compressive stress.
Won-Tae Park, Seok-Ju Kangand and Yong-Young
Noh [28] have reported on ambipolar organic
complementary inverters based on polyazine
containing diketopyrrolopyrrole (PBTDAZ).
CYTOP was used as dielectric layer and Al, Au, Cr
for gate, source, drain electrodes respectively.
PBTDAZ and CYTOP were spin coated and
thermal annealing was done at 100◦C.
Configuration used is top contact, bottom gate and
W/L is 1000µm/20µm. The mobilities obtained are
0.12cm2/ Vs and 0.13cm2/Vs for holes and
electrons respectively. The ambipolar
complementary inverter-based PDBTAZ OFETs
have resulted in ideal Vinv near half of VDD with a
high gain of 15˜20 due to the well-balanced
electron and hole mobilities.
The work carried out by Yong Jin Jeong and co-
authors[29] reported the development of high
performance organic complementary inverters
using graphene as source/drain electrodes and
PTCDIC13 and pentacene as N and P-type organic
semiconductors respectively. They grew Graphene
on the substrate using chemical vapor deposition
and introduced self-assembled monolayer below the
graphene that tuned its work function. To improve
the crystallinity thermal annealing was done on the
graphene surface. With SiO2 as dielectric results
show the mobility of N-type upto 0.43 cm2/Vs
which was comparable to the values obtained from
other P-type pentacene OFETs. By integrating P
and N-type OFETs they succeeded in fabricating
organic complementary inverters that exhibited
highly symmetric operation with an excellent
voltage gain of up to 124 and good noise margin.
Another work carried out by Kunjie Wu, Suna
Zhang, Zeyang Xu, Xiaosong Chen and Liqiang Li
[30] have used solution method for fabrication of
inverters based on triisopropylsilylethynyl-
pentacene and N,N’-dioctyl-1,7 dicyanoperylene
(3,4:9,10) tetracarboxylic diimide. Thin films of
semiconductors were prepared by drop casting on
the substrate. The inverter that they fabricated has
channel length of 10µm. Si, SiO2 and Au were used
for gate, dielectric and source/drain electrodes.
Low operation voltage (4–10 V), high gain (12–
27), large noise margin(>60% of 1/2Vdd), low
static power dissipation (tens of nanowatts), and a
propagation delay time of 0.42ms were the results
of their work.
Kyung Sun Park, Jangmi Baek, Yong-Eun Koo Lee
and Myung Mo Sung [31] have reported the
fabrication and electrical characterization of a
wafer-scale array of organic complementary
inverters using single crystal TIPS-PEN and
fullerene(C60) nanowires as P and N-channels
respectively with bottom gate, top contact
configuration. They have adopted liquid-bridge
mediated nanotransfer molding (LB-nTM), a direct
printing approach with Ag as electrodes. Field-
effect mobilities of P and N-type were found to be
uniform with 1.01 ± 0.14 and 0.10 ± 0.01cm2/ Vs
respectively with an average gain of 25.
To avoid the interfacing issue between active layer
and dielectric, Jeong-Do Oh, Jang-Woon Kim,
Dae-Kyu Kim and Jong-Ho Choi [32] in their
work have passivated the dielectric with hydroxyl
free polymer insulator. They have compared the
fabrication and characterization of low-voltage
pentacene and PTCDI-C13-based OFETs and
inverters using the solution-processed HfOx
dielectrics and COC-passivated OFETs and
inverters. HfOx films were produced by spin
coating. The metal used for electrodes are Au and
LiF/Al for P and N type respectively. According to
them the COC- passivated OFETs and inverters
showed better performance under ambient
conditions with mobilities 0.46 ± 0.04 cm2/ Vs. and
0.27 ± 0.01 cm2/ Vs for P and N-type. They have
suggested that the passivation scheme is suitable
for the devices to perform well.
Lung-Kai Mao, Jenn-Chang Hwang, Jen-Ching
Tsai[33] have worked to reduce the operating
voltage and to improve the gain by using bilayer
dielectric. They have in their fabrication used
pentacene for P-type and PTCDI-C8 for N-type,
geletin as dielectric and Au for source/drain
electrodes. They chose top contact configuration
and to passivate the dielectric have deposited TTC
by thermal evaporation. The channel length is
50µm for both P and N-channel OFETs and the
widths of P and N-channel OFETs are 600µm and
1200µm, respectively. The results for mobilities are
0.5cm2/Vs (pentacene) and 0.3 cm2/ (PTCDI-C8).
The ended up with the device which operated at a
voltage as low as 10v and with a gain of 60.
Andreas Petritz , Archim Wolfberger , Alexander
Fian , Thomas Griesser , Mihai Irimia-Vladu and
Barbara Stadlober[34] have developed the
complementary inverter based on hybrid dielectric
composed of a bilayer of alumina(Al2O3) which is
inorganic and trimethylsilyl cellulose (TMSC) and
pentacene, C60 for the P-channel and the N-channel
organic semiconductor respectively. Au/Al has been
used for source/drain electrodes. With bottom
gate, top contact device structure, the mobilities
were 0.7cm2/Vs and 0.22cm2/Vs for N and P-type
respectively. They have reported that the low
operation voltage is of 4V and large noise margin
is upto 92.5%.
Kyung Gook Cho, Hyun Je Kim, Hae Min Yang,
Kyoung Hwan Seol, Seung Ju Lee and Keun
Hyung[35] Lee have fabricated transfer stamped
organic/inorganic complementary inverters using
ionogel gated EGTs, Cr/Au for source/drain with
top gate, bottom contact configuration. They have
successfully done the complementary inverters
operating at low voltages by soft lithographic
transfer stamping. Both EGTs turned on and off at
small applied voltages of < 2V and showed high
transistor on currents with reasonably high on/off
ratios of >104. The average carrier mobility values
of the P3HT and ZnO EGTs were 2.81cm2/Vs and
2.06 cm2/Vs respectively. High voltage gain of 18
was realized by using transfer-stamped P3HT and
ZnO.
IV. CHALLENGES IN ORGANIC INVERTERS
From the literature discussion, few challenges are
listed on complementary circuits based on organic
transistors.
1. Lack of high performance functional
organic materials for P and N-type,
especially for N-type material
2. Organic complementary circuits require
both N and P-channel OTFTs with
comparable performance including
mobilities, threshold voltages, sub threshold
slopes and on/off current ratios.
3. Interface at Source/Drain/Gate electrodes
and di-electric gate insulation to organic
semiconductor.
4. Stability in ambient conditions such as
mechanical stress, humidity, pollution and
temperature.
5. Degradation of thin films due to the
influence of aging, wear mechanism and
solid interaction.
 V. CONCLUSION [19] Kunjie Wu, Suna Zhang, Zeyang Xu, Xiaosong Chen and Liqiang Li,
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