Abstract
Organic semiconductors show efficient electroluminescence which has led to their commercialization in light-emitting diodes, but has also raised fundamental questions about their recombination and emission physics. Organic ambipolar field-effect transistors can support both hole and electron transport at the semiconductor–dielectric interface. Using their ability to emit light owing to charge recombination within the transistor channel should enable new ways to study the recombination physics and realize new electrooptical devices. Here we demonstrate ambipolar light-emitting transistors based on a semiconducting polymer with both efficient electron and hole transport and good photoluminescence efficiency. In our device configuration, electrons and holes injected from separate calcium and gold electrodes recombine radiatively within the channel. We can move the recombination zone with the applied gate and source–drain bias to any position within the channel. This provides a direct visualization and proof of coexisting electron and hole accumulation layers in an ambipolar transport regime.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Friend, R. H. et al. Electroluminescence in conjugated polymers. Nature 397, 121–128 (1999).
Segal, M., Baldo, M. A., Holmes, R. J., Forrest, S. R. & Soos, Z. G. Excitonic singlet-triplet ratios in molecular and polymeric organic materials. Phys. Rev. B 68, 075211 (2003).
Morteani, A. C. et al. Barrier-free electron-hole capture in polymer blend heterojunction light-emitting diodes. Adv. Mater. 15, 1708–1712 (2003).
Kajii, H., Taneda, T. & Ohmori, Y. Organic light-emitting diode fabricated on a polymer substrate for optical links. Thin Solid Films 438, 334–338 (2003).
Bader, M. A. et al. Poly(p-phenylenevinylene) derivatives: new promising materials for nonlinear all-optical waveguide switching. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 19, 2250–2262 (2002).
Tessler, N. et al. Properties of light emitting organic materials within the context of future electrically pumped lasers. Synth. Met. 115, 57–62 (2000).
Baldo, M. A., Holmes, R. J. & Forrest, S. R. Prospects for electrically pumped organic lasers. Phys. Rev. B 66, 35321 (2002).
Verlaak, S., Cheyns, D., Debucquoy, M., Arkhipov, V. & Heremans, P. Numerical simulation of tetracene light-emitting transistors: A detailed balance of exciton processes. Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 2405–2407 (2004).
Meijer, E. J. et al. Solution-processed ambipolar organic field-effect transistors and inverters. Nature Mater. 2, 678–682 (2003).
Anthopoulos, T. D. et al. Organic complementary-like inverters employing methanofullerene-based ambipolar field-effect transistors. Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 4205–4207 (2004).
Dodabalapur, A., Katz, H. E. & Torsi, L. Molecular orbital energy level engineering in organic transistors. Adv. Mater. 8, 853–855 (1996).
Rost, C. et al. Ambipolar light-emitting organic field-effect transistor. Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 1613–1615 (2004).
Tada, H., Touda, H., Takada, M. & Matsushige, K. Quasi-intrinsic semiconducting state of titanyl-phthalocyanine films obtained under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. Appl. Phys. Lett. 76, 873–875 (2000).
Ahles, M., Hepp, A., Schmechel, R. & von Seggern, H. Light emission from a polymer transistor. Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 428–430 (2004).
Santato, C. et al. Tetracene-based organic light-emitting transistors: optoelectronic properties and electron injection mechanism. Synth. Met. 146, 329–334 (2004).
Sakanoue, T., Fujiwara, E., Yamada, R. & Tada, H. Visible light emission from polymer-based field-effect transistors. Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 3037–3039 (2004).
Reynaert, J. et al. Ambipolar injection in a submicron-channel light-emitting tetracene transistor with distinct source and drain contacts. J. Appl. Phys. 97, 114501 (2005).
Misewich, J. A. et al. Electrically induced optical emission from a carbon nanotube FET. Science 300, 783–786 (2003).
Freitag, M. et al. Mobile ambipolar domain in carbon-nanotube infrared emitters. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 076803 (2004).
Chua, L. L. et al. General observation of n-type field-effect behaviour in organic semiconductors. Nature 434, 194–199 (2005).
Ho, P. K. H. et al. Molecular-scale interface engineering for polymer light-emitting diodes. Nature 404, 481–484 (2000).
Kim, J. S., Ho, P. K. H., Greenham, N. C. & Friend, R. H. Electroluminescence emission pattern of organic light-emitting diodes: Implications for device efficiency calculations. J. Appl. Phys. 88, 1073–1081 (2000).
Sze, S. M. Semiconductor Devices—Physics and Technology (Wiley, New York, 2002).
Dimitrakopoulos, C. D. & Malenfant, P. R. L. Organic thin film transistors for large area electronics. Adv. Mater. 14, 99–117 (2002).
Rost, C., Gundlach, D. J., Karg, S. & Riess, W. Ambipolar organic field-effect transistor based on an organic heterostructure. J. Appl. Phys. 95, 5782–5787 (2004).
Roichman, Y. & Tessler, N. Structures of polymer field-effect transistor: Experimental and numerical analyses. Appl. Phys. Lett. 80, 151–153 (2002).
Acknowledgements
We thank T. Richards, R. Shikler and J. S. Kim for technical help and useful discussions. J.Z. thanks the Gates Cambridge Trust and EPSRC for financial support.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary information
Supplementary information S1, figures S1 and S2 and movie legends (PDF 408 kb)
Supplementary movie S2
Supplementary movie S2 (AVI 2262 kb)
Supplementary movie S3
Supplementary movie S3 (AVI 1918 kb)
Supplementary movie S4
Supplementary movie S4 (AVI 1919 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zaumseil, J., Friend, R. & Sirringhaus, H. Spatial control of the recombination zone in an ambipolar light-emitting organic transistor. Nature Mater 5, 69–74 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1537
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1537
This article is cited by
-
A study of highly efficient organic light emitting transistors that outperforms organic light emitting diodes
Optical and Quantum Electronics (2023)
-
Light sources with bias tunable spectrum based on van der Waals interface transistors
Nature Communications (2022)
-
Efficient energy transfer in organic light-emitting transistor with tunable wavelength
Nano Research (2022)
-
Efficient and low-voltage vertical organic permeable base light-emitting transistors
Nature Materials (2021)
-
Molecular-scale integrated multi-functions for organic light-emitting transistors
Nano Research (2020)