Sub-thermionic, ultra-high-gain organic transistors and circuits
Zhongzhong Luo, Boyu Peng, Junpeng Zeng, Zhihao Yu, Ying Zhao, Jun Xie, Rongfang Lan, Zhong Ma, Lijia Pan, Ke Cao, Yang Lü, Daowei He, Hongkai Ning, Wanqing Meng, Yang Yang, Xiaoqing Chen, Weisheng Li, Jiawei Wang, Danfeng Pan, Xuecou Tu, Wenxing Huo, Xian Huang, Dongquan Shi, Ling Li, Ming Liu, Yi Shi, Xue Feng, Paddy K. L. Chan, Xinran Wang
Abstract
Abstract 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.