Mobility overestimation due to gated contacts in organic field-effect transistors

Parameters used to describe the electrical properties of organic field-effect transistors, such as mobility and threshold voltage, are commonly extracted from measured current–voltage characteristics and interpreted by using the classical metal oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor model. However, in recent reports of devices with ultra-high mobility (>40 cm(2) V(−1) s(−1)), the device characteristics deviate from this idealized model and show an abrupt turn-on in the drain current when measured as a function of gate voltage. In order to investigate this phenomenon, here we report on single crystal rubrene transistors intentionally fabricated to exhibit an abrupt turn-on. We disentangle the channel properties from the contact resistance by using impedance spectroscopy and show that the current in such devices is governed by a gate bias dependence of the contact resistance. As a result, extracted mobility values from d.c. current–voltage characterization are overestimated by one order of magnitude or more.