Modification of the electric conduction at the pentacene∕SiO2 interface by surface termination of SiO2

A surface treatment method has been developed for the SiO2∕Si substrate to control the electrical properties of pentacene thin-film transistors (TFTs). The surface treatment is performed by spin-coating 1,1,1,3,3,3-hexamethyldisilazane liquid, resulting in a drastic improvement of the off current although the surface treatment never shows a pronounced morphological change in the pentacene channel in comparison with the one on the nontreated substrate. The off current improvement directly enhances the transistor performance especially in the TFTs with a few monolayers channel thickness. The off current suppression could be caused by the reduction of the interfacial floating charge trapped at the pentacene∕SiO2 interface.