Low-Power and High-Gain Organic Transistors Achieved Through an Ideal Contact Approaching the Schottky–Mott Limit

Abstract

The advancement of flexible electronics necessitates low-power and high-gain organic transistors endowed with the capability to amplify feeble signals, meeting the demands of signal processing and transmission. Despite a myriad of endeavors, the intrinsic gain (A_i) of organic transistors at low supply voltage is conditioned by extrinsic losses attributable to imperfections at the electrical contact. Here, we push the metal–organic semiconductor contact close to the ideal Schottky–Mott model through a blade-coating-induced meniscus extension method, which allows the growth of organic single-crystalline films on multiple and uneven electrode heterointerfaces. Using this approach, our transistor manifests an impeccable gate electrostatic tunability with an ideal subthreshold swing (SS) of 59.6 mV dec^–1 and a low average SS of 84.2 mV dec^–1 over six decades of current, yielding a high A_i of 1.35 × 10⁵, which is comparable with the reported champion organic thin-film transistors. As a result, an amplifier based on the transistors can operate normally at an extremely low dynamic power consumption of 33.2 pW and reach an ultrahigh voltage gain of 1590 V/V at a low voltage of 5 V. Our study promises to usher in low-power organic electronics reaching the bounds of physical performance.