Correlation among Morphology, Crystallinity, and Charge Mobility in OFETs Made of Quaterthiophene Alkyl Derivatives on a Transparent Substrate Platform

In this Article, we present a comprehensive study of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) made of thin films of methyl, n-butyl, and n-hexyl end-substituted quaterthiophenes on a transparent substrate platform. This particular platform has been already used for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) but rarely employed for OFETs. In perspective, this is a very promising route for the development of field-effect photonic applications such as organic light-emitting transistors (OLETs). A systematic characterization of the organic films has been made by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) to correlate morphology, crystallinity and charge mobility to the alkyl chain length. In particular, a charge mobility value of 0.09 cm(2)/(V s) has been obtained in transparent OFETs with a large area channel for DH4T grown at room temperature. This mobility exceeds the one obtained on silicon-oxide substrates and is likely due to a more favorable interaction of the DH4T molecules with the PMMA layer employed as gate dielectric.