Very low bias stress in n-type organic single-crystal transistors

Bias stress effects in n-channel organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) are investigated using N,N'-bis(n-alkyl)-(1,7 and 1,6)-dicyanoperylene-3,4:9,10-bis(dicarboximide)s (PDIF-CN2) single-crystal devices with Cytop gate dielectric, both under vacuum and in ambient. We find that the amount of bias stress is very small as compared to all (p-channel) OFETs reported in the literature. Stressing the PDIF-CN2 devices by applying 80V to the gate for up to a week results in a decrease of the source drain current of only similar to 1% under vacuum and similar to 10% in air. This remarkable stability of the devices leads to characteristic time constants tau, extracted by fitting the data with a stretched exponential-that are tau similar to 2 x 10(9) s in air and tau similar to 5 x 10(9) s in vacuum-approximately two orders of magnitude larger than the best values reported previously for p-channel OFETs. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3698341]