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Coulomb-blockade transport in single-crystal organic thin-film transistors

Nature volume 404, pages 977–980 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

Coulomb-blockade transport—whereby the Coulomb interaction between electrons can prohibit their transport around a circuit—occurs in systems in which both the tunnel resistance, RT, between neighbouring sites is large (≫h/e2) and the charging energy, EC (EC = e2/2C, where C is the capacitance of the site), of an excess electron on a site is large compared to kT. (Here e is the charge of an electron, k is Boltzmann's constant, and h is Planck's constant.) The nature of the individual sites—metallic, superconducting, semiconducting or quantum dot—is to first order irrelevant for this phenomenon to be observed1. Coulomb blockade has also been observed in two-dimensional arrays of normal-metal tunnel junctions2, but the relatively large capacitances of these micrometre-sized metal islands results in a small charging energy, and so the effect can be seen only at extremely low temperatures. Here we demonstrate that organic thin-film transistors based on highly ordered molecular materials can, to first order, also be considered as an array of sites separated by tunnel resistances. And as a result of the sub-nanometre sizes of the sites (the individual molecules), and hence their small capacitances, the charging energy dominates at room temperature. Conductivity measurements as a function of both gate bias and temperature reveal the presence of thermally activated transport, consistent with the conventional model of Coulomb blockade.

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Figure 1: Schematic sample layout.
Figure 2: Room-temperature current–voltage characteristics of a single-crystal pentacene TFT with gap length of 8 µm and width of 16 µm.
Figure 3: Charge transport data of the pentacene TFT shown in Fig. 2.
Figure 4: Comparison of the charge transport data of α-4T, α-6T and pentacene.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Vrijmoeth for his stimulating and crucial role in the early stages of this work, M. Mulder for support in sample fabrication and D. B. A. Rep for contributions to finalizing the manuscript. We also acknowledge encouragement and support from G. Hadziioannou. This work was supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) through the Strichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Physics,

    W. A. Schoonveld & B. J. van Wees

  2. Materials Science Center,

    W. A. Schoonveld, J. Wildeman & B. J. van Wees

  3. Department of Polymer Chemistry, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, AG Groningen, 9747, The Netherlands

    J. Wildeman

  4. Laboratoire des Matériaux Moléculaires, CNRS, 2 rue Henry-Dunant, Thiais, 94320, France

    D. Fichou

  5. Physics Department, Eindhoven University of Technology, PO Box 513, MB Eindhoven, NL-5600, The Netherlands

    P. A. Bobbert

  6. Department of Applied Physics, Delft University of Technology, Nanophysics and Nanotechnology Section, Lorentzweg 1, CJ Delft, 2628, The Netherlands

    T. M. Klapwijk

Authors
  1. W. A. Schoonveld
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  2. J. Wildeman
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  3. D. Fichou
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  6. T. M. Klapwijk
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Correspondence to W. A. Schoonveld.

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Schoonveld, W., Wildeman, J., Fichou, D. et al. Coulomb-blockade transport in single-crystal organic thin-film transistors. Nature 404, 977–980 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35010073

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