High-Performance Pentacene-Based Field-Effect Transistor Memory Using the Electrets of Polymer Blends

Organic field-effect transistor (OFET) memory based on pentacene has attracted a lot of attentions due to its promising prospect of application in flexible electronics, while the high programming/erasing (P/E) gate voltages due to the existence of hole barrier at pentacene/polymer interface leaves great challenges for its commercial applications. A high-performance pentacene-based OFET nonvolatile memory (ONVM) with polymer blends is reported here as the charge-trapping layer containing poly(2-vinyl naphthalene) (PVN) and poly{[N,N'-bis(2-octyldodecyl)naphthalene-1,4,5,8-bis(dicarboximide)-2,6-diyl]-alt-5,5'-(2,2'-bithiophene)} (N2200). The presence of N2200, an n-type semiconductor, in blends significantly improves the memory performance of pentacene-based memory devices based on the static-electric effect. The electrons in N2200 are aggregated near the pentacene/polymer interface due to the electric attraction from the positively charged defects in pentacene. Furthermore, those electrons reduce the height of hole barrier and produce local easy-transportation paths for holes between pentacene and PVN, which enables the electret-based ONVM device with low P/E voltages, fast P/E speeds, large mobility and stable multilevel data-storage ability in ambient air.