Flexible Polymer Thin-Film Transistor Device Structures And Processes For 13.56 MHz RF Rectifier Circuits

Abstract

Polymeric thin-film transistors (TFTs) have been proposed for several applications including displays, electronic paper, chemical sensors, and radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. One important technical hurdle that has to be overcome for using organic transistors in RFID tags is for these devices to operate at RF frequencies (typically 13.56 MHz) in the front end. It was long thought that conjugated polymer transistors are too slow for this. In this presentation we will demonstrate that polymer transistor based full-wave rectifier circuits utilizing a polythiophene, a p-channel semiconductor, can operate at this frequency with a useful efficiency. In order to achieve such high-frequency operation, we make use of the non-quasi static (NQS) state of the transistors. Bottom gate and top gate structures are explored and a comparison is made between the observed electrical properties. These circuits are fabricated on PEN (polyethylenenapthalate) or PET (polyethylene-terepthalate) substrates using a spin on dielectric. Gate, source and drain contacts are defined photolithographically using evaporated gold as the metal. Field-effect mobilities in the range of 0.02 and 0.2 cm²/Vs that equal or exceed the highest reported among the ones employing similar geometries on plastic substrates are easily obtained in these systems. In order for NQS based rectification to take place the carrier velocity in a 2 micrometer channel length device needs to be more than 2×10⁴ cm/s. This would correspond to a mobility of 0.1cm²/V-s at a field of 105 V/cm. The rectifiers were based on a 4-transistor full-wave design. A coil (transformer secondary) drives the AC inputs in differential mode. The lower diode connected transistors in a manner similar to the half-wave rectifier define the DC voltage level of the two AC input signals. The two upper transistors are connected as switches and are used to move current from the AC inputs to the positive DC output. The capacitor is used to hold the peak voltage level supplied by the coil through the switch-connected devices. The voltage rectification efficiency is relatively high being as much as 45% at 13.56 MHz. This is among the fastest polymer transistor circuit of any kind demonstrated to date.