Flexible Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode Display Using Air-Stable Organic Semiconductor of \hbox[\hbox, \hbox\hbox: \hbox^, \hbox^ \hbox]\hbox[\hbox, \hbox \hbox] \hbox \hbox

• Published in: IEEE transactions on electron devices 2012-12, Vol.59 (12), p.3442-3449
• Main Authors: Fujisaki, Y., Nakajima, Y., Takei, T., Fukagawa, H., Yamamoto, T., Fujikake, H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Backplanes; Flexible display; gate insulator (GI); Logic gates; Organic light emitting diodes; organic semiconductor (OSC); Polymers; Surface treatment; Thin film transistors; thin-film transistors (TFTs)
• ISSN: 0018-9383; 1557-9646
• DOI: 10.1109/TED.2012.2220968

We developed a flexible active-matrix (AM) organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display driven by an organic thin-film transistor (TFT) (OTFT) using an air-stable organic semiconductor (OSC) of dinaphtho[2, 3 -b:2', 3' -f]thieno[ 3, 2 -b]-thiophene (DNTT) for the first time. We employed a low-temperature cross-linkable olefin-type polymer as the gate insulator (GI) and investigated the properties of the interface between DNTT and polymer GI. The top-contact TFT demonstrated a high mobility of up to 0.8 cm 2 /V·s and a near-zero turn-on voltage. DNTT has a deeper highest occupied molecular orbital level than other OSC materials, and this leads to large contact resistance between the source/drain (S/D) contact and OSC. Surface modifications to the S/D contact were investigated to enable efficient carrier injection to fabricate high-performance bottom-contact TFTs. The short-channel TFT we fabricated exhibited a high hole mobility of 0.5 cm 2 /V·s, a low subthreshold slope of 0.31, and excellent environmental and operational stability. The DNTT-based TFT also demonstrated good applications to processes with less deterioration. Finally, a 5-in flexible OLED display was successively fabricated by integrating the AM backplane with a phosphorescent OLED device. A high luminescence over 300 cd/ m 2 was achieved by driving the DNTT-based OTFTs.