Title:
|
Modelling and Fabrication of Organic Semiconductor Devices for RFID Tags
|
As organic semiconductor materials advance in both performance and
stability, opportunities to integrate them into commercial applications increase
considerably. The main benefits of organic semiconductor-related technology are the
realisations of large area, flexible, cheap electronics. Already, organic light emitting
diodes (OLEDs) are being integrated into small screens for mobiles phones, MP3
players, digital cameras, and high-resolution micro-displays. Such portable devices
favour the high light output of OLEDs for easier readability in sunlight as well as
their low power drain. However, at this time, the issue of low field effect mobilities
still haunt these materials, limiting their application into low speed circuits. More
recently, the introduction of the next generation of small molecule-based organic
materials has increased the possibility of attaining high field effect mobilities. The
majority of the focus is on pentacene as this has been shown to demonstrate effective
mobilities of up to 1.5 cm2y-1s-l. Unfortunately, this type of pentacene was
evaporated which does not seem feasible for large scale manufacturing. More
recently, modified pentacene materials have surfaced allowing them to be dissolved
in common solvents, one such example being triisopropylsilyl-pentacene (TIPSpentacene).
Thin film transistors (TFTs) made with this material have been reported
to have mobilities as high as 1.2 cm2y-ls-1 and onloffratios of 108. Materials such as
TIPS-pentacene are now preferred as they can be integrated into low-cost
manufacturing techniques such as inkjet printing and roll-to-roll processing.
One of the major prospective applications for these organic materials is the
integration into radio frequency identification tags (RFID); these operate at 13.56
MHz. This is a great challenge as the rectification stage will require devices with
high mobilities to enable carriers to follow the signal, thus gaining the maximum
amount of energy from an inductively coupled magnetic field. It is not clear as to
whether Schottky diodes or gated-transistors will be required here. The advantage of
gated-transistors is the simple incorporation into the fabrication process. Schottky
diodes with these materials require thicker films which are incompatible with spin
coated thin film transistors.
This thesis focuses on three of the main components for a potential organic
RFID tag: the tag antenna, the schottky diode and the organic thin film transistor.
These are all vital components in the successful operation of an RFIO tag. The
antenna is imperative for the power supply as it absorbs energy due to inductive
coupling with the RFID reader antenna. The Schottky diode is important for the
frontend/rectification stage, converting AC power to a DC supply voltage for an
organic chip. The thin film transistor is hugely important as it is the backbone for
logic and memory.
The fundamental background into inductive coupling based RFID systems is
explored and discussed. Major components such as the reader, tag and control
system are introduced, while their role and importance are also looked into.
Operational principles such as near field inductive coupling for systems functioning
at 13.56 MHz are featured, involving the issues of data transfer and power supply.
From here, the concept of mutual inductance is explored in detail, as well as
highlighting the fact that most RFID systems of this nature comprise lower coupling,
as low as I %. The core theory behind predicting the chip voltage on the tag is also
explained, to illustrate just how many design parameters are involved and how they
affect the performance of an RFID system. The challenges presented to organicbased
RFID tags are also summarised and discussed.
The numerous charge transport models proposed so far to represent
conduction in organic semiconductors are assessed. These models include variable
range Miller Abraham hopping and Poole-Frenkel mechanisms. Currently, an
outright universal understanding of carrier transport is yet to be widely agreed. An
analytical model is developed to demonstrate the carrier density dependence of
mobility that is generally observed in organic semiconductors. An empirical
relationship between mobility and carrier density, known as the Universal Mobility
Law (UML) is recognised.
The polycrystalline-based theory which consists of deriving expressions for
quasi-drift and quasi-diffusion regions of operation is explained. TIPS-pentacene is
utilised here for the first time to test the model. The fabrication procedure for
creating bottom-gate bottom-contact organic thin film transistors is covered, with aluminium as the gate material, a high-K alumina gate dielectric and gold for the
source and drain contacts. The transistors were fabricated and characterised in a
clean non-vacuum environment. The effect of solvent choice is also investigated.
comparing tetralin and toluene solvents. The field effect mobility of the charge
carriers calculated were approximately 0.02 cm2Ns with threshold voltages ranging
from -1V to +1V depending on the chosen solvent. The on/off current ratio estimated
from the transfer characteristics were found to be six order of magnitude.
Schottky diodes made with TIPS-pentacene show onloff current ratios three
to four order magnitude higher than the P3HT devices, suggesting they are much
more suitable for rectification circuits. The introduction of mixing the TIPSpentacene
material with binders such as poly( a-methyl styrene ) (PAMS) and
polystyrene (PS) produced some intriguing results. Both types of binders produced
much smoother drop cast films than TIPS films without any binder applied,
indicating that the binders were definitely improving the film morphology. Different
surface treatments were also employed to help further increase the performance of
the devices. It appeared that applying oxygen plasma to the bottom contact
definitely helped adhesion. However, chemical treatments such as
pentafluorobenzenethiol (PFBT) and I-hexadecanethiol (HDT) either did not affect
performance or severely inhibited it.
|