Sub-thermionic, ultra-high-gain organic transistors and circuits

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 1928
• Main Authors: Luo, Zhongzhong, Peng, Boyu, Zeng, Junpeng, Yu, Zhihao, Zhao, Ying, Xie, Jun, Lan, Rongfang, Ma, Zhong, Pan, Lijia, Cao, Ke, Lu, Yang, He, Daowei, Ning, Hongkai, Meng, Wanqing, Yang, Yang, Chen, Xiaoqing, Li, Weisheng, Wang, Jiawei, Pan, Danfeng, Tu, Xuecou, Huo, Wenxing, Huang, Xian, Shi, Dongquan, Li, Ling, Liu, Ming, Shi, Yi, Feng, Xue, Chan, Paddy K. L., Wang, Xinran
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 26-03-2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 132/122; 142/126; 147/143; 147/3; 639/166/985; 639/301/1005/1007; 639/925/927/998; Amplification; Arrhythmia; Batteries; Capacitance; Circuits; EKG; Electrocardiography; Fabrication; Ferroelectric materials; Ferroelectricity; Fibrillation; Flexible components; Gain; Gating; Hafnium; Hafnium oxide; High gain; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Nanomaterials; Nanotechnology; Optimization; Organic crystals; Oxides; Power consumption; Power management; Radio frequency identification; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Semiconductor devices; Sensors; Thin film transistors; Thin films; Transconductance; Transistors; Voltage; Voltage gain
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22192-2

The development of organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) with low power consumption and high gain will advance many flexible electronics. Here, by combining solution-processed monolayer organic crystal, ferroelectric HfZrO
x
gating and van der Waals fabrication, we realize flexible OTFTs that simultaneously deliver high transconductance and sub-60 mV/dec switching, under one-volt operating voltage. The overall optimization of transconductance, subthreshold swing and output resistance leads to transistor intrinsic gain and amplifier voltage gain over 5.3 × 10
4
and 1.1 × 10
4
, respectively, which outperform existing technologies using organics, oxides and low-dimensional nanomaterials. We further demonstrate battery-powered, integrated wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) and pulse sensors that can amplify human physiological signal by 900 times with high fidelity. The sensors are capable of detecting weak ECG waves (undetectable even by clinical equipment) and diagnosing arrhythmia and atrial fibrillation. Our sub-thermionic OTFT is promising for battery/wireless powered yet performance demanding applications such as electronic skins and radio-frequency identification tags, among many others.
Exploiting negative capacitance effects in organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) is advantageous for enhancing device performance. Here, the authors report solution-processed sub-thermionic OTFTs and circuits with ferroelectric hafnium oxides that show ultra-low power and ultra-high gain.