Book description
Research on organic electronics (or plastic electronics) is driven by
the need to create systems that are lightweight, unbreakable, and
mechanically flexible. With the remarkable improvement in the
performance of organic semiconductor materials during the past few
decades, organic electronics appeal to innovative, practical, and
broad-impact applications requiring large-area coverage, mechanical
flexibility, low-temperature processing, and low cost. Thus, organic
electronics appeal to a broad range of electronic devices and products
including transistors, diodes, sensors, solar cells, lighting, displays,
and electronic identification and tracking devices A number of
commercial opportunities have been identified for organic thin film
transistors (OTFTs), ranging from flexible displays, electronic paper,
radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, smart cards, to low-cost
disposable electronic products, and more are continually being invented
as the technology matures. The potential applications for ?plastic
electronics? are huge but several technological hurdles must be
overcome. In many of these applications, transistor serves as a
fundamental building block to implement the necessary electronic
functionality. Hence, research in organic thin film transistors (OTFTs)
or organic field effect transistors (OFETs) is eminently pertinent to
the development and realization of organic electronics. This book
presents a comprehensive investigation of the production and application
of a variety of polymer based transistor devices and circuits. It begins
with a detailed overview of Organic Thin Film Transistors (OTFTs) and
discusses the various possible fabrication methods reported so far. This
is followed by two major sections on the choice, optimization and
implementation of the gate dielectric material to be used. Details of
the effects of processing on the efficiency of the contacts are then
provided. The book concludes with a chapter on the integration of such
devices to produce a variety of OTFT based circuits and systems. The key
objective is to examine strategies to exploit existing materials and
techniques to advance OTFT technology in device performance, device
manufacture, and device integration. Finally, the collective knowledge
from these investigations facilitates the integration of OTFTs into
organic circuits, which is expected to contribute to the development of
new generation of all-organic displays for communication devices and
other pertinent applications. Overall, a major outcome of this work is
that it provides an economical means for organic transistor and circuit
integration, by enabling the use of a well-established PECVD
infrastructure, while not compromising the performance of electronics.
The techniques established here are not limited to use in OTFTs only;
the organic semiconductor and SiNx combination can be used in other
device structures (e. g., sensors, diodes, photovoltaics). Furthermore,
the approach and strategy used for interface optimization can be
extended to the development of other materials systems. Flora M. Li is
a Research Associate at the Centre of Advanced Photonics and Electronics
(CAPE) at the University of Cambridge, UK. She received her Ph. D.
degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of
Waterloo, Canada in 2008. She was a Visiting Scientist at Xerox Research
Centre of Canada (XRCC) from 2005-2008. Her research interests are in
the field of nano- and thin-film technology for applications in large
area and flexible electronics, including displays, sensors,
photovoltaics, circuits and systems. She has co-authored a book entitled
CCD Image Sensors in Deep-Ultraviolet (2005), and published in various
scientific journals.
Arokia Nathan holds the Sumitomo/STS Chair of Nanotechnology at the
London Centre for Nanotechnology, University College London, UK. He is
also the CTO of Ignis Innovation Inc., Waterloo, Canada, a company he
founded to commercialize technology on thin film silicon backplanes on
rigid and flexible substrates for large area electronics. He received
his Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alberta,
Canada, in 1988. In 1987, he joined LSI Logic Corp., Santa Clara, CA,
USA where he worked on advanced multi-chip packaging techniques.
Subsequently, he was at the Institute of Quantum Electronics, ETH
Zurich, Switzerland. In 1989, he joined the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo. In 1995, he was a Visiting
Professor at the Physical Electronics Laboratory, ETH Zurich,
Switzerland. In 1997 he held the DALSA/NSERC Industrial Research Chair
in sensor technology, and was a recipient of the 2001 Natural Sciences
and Engineering Research Council E. W.R. Steacie Fellowship. In 2004 he
was awarded the Canada Research Chair in nano-scale flexible circuits.
In 2005/2006, he was a Visiting Professor in the Engineering Department,
University of Cambridge, U. K. In 2006, he joined the London Centre for
Nanotechnology and is a recipient of the Royal Society Wolfson Research
Merit Award. He has published extensively in the field of sensor
technology, CAD, and thin film transistor electronics, and has over 40
patents filed/awarded. He is the co-author of two books, Microtransducer
CAD and CCD Image Sensors in Deep-Ultraviolet, published in 1999 and
2005, respectively, and serves on technical committees and editorial
boards at various capacities.
