Bias-dependent contact resistance in rubrene single-crystal field-effect transistors

The authors report a systematic study of the bias-dependent contact resistance in rubrene single-crystal field-effect transistors with Ni, Co, Cu, Au, and Pt electrodes. They show that the reproducibility in the values of contact resistance strongly depends on the metal, ranging from a factor of 2 for Ni to more than three orders of magnitude for Au. Surprisingly, field-effect transistors with Ni, Co, and Cu contacts exhibit an unexpected reproducibility of the bias-dependent differential conductance of the contacts once this has been normalized to the value measured at zero bias. This reproducibility may enable the study of microscopic carrier injection processes into organic semiconductors. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.