Compact DC Modelling of Short-Channel Effects in Organic Thin-Film Transistors

Els transistors orgànics de capa fina (TFT) són dispositius prometedors per a les pantalles flexibles de matriu activa i els conjunts de sensors, ja que poden fabricar-se a temperatures de procés relativament baixes i, per tant, no sols en vidre, sinó també en substrats polimèrics. Per a millorar el rendiment dinàmic dels dispositius i circuits TFT , una reducció agressiva de la longitud de canal provoca efectes extrínsecs en els dispositius que han de ser capturats per models compactes. Aquesta tesi presenta models analítics, basats en la física, de la degradació de la pendent subumbral, el roll-off del voltatge llindar i l'efecte DIBL en TFTs coplanars i escalonats que poden ser implementats en qualsevol model compacte de corrent continu arbitrari que estigui definit pel voltatge llindar i la pendent subumbral. Per tant, l'equació diferencial de Laplace es resol per a la geometria coplanar i escalonada aplicant la transformación Schwarz-Cristoffel. Les solucions del potencial serveixen de base per a la definició de les equacions del model. A més, es desenvolupen models compactes de les barreres Schottky dependents de la polarització en les interfícies font/semiconductor i drenador/semiconductor en els TFT coplanars i escalonats, que modelen la injecció i l'ejecció de portadors de càrrega, respectivament, com a corrent d'emissió termoiònica.Los transistores orgánicos de capa fina (TFT) son dispositivos prometedores para las pantallas flexibles de matriz activa y los conjuntos de sensores, ya que pueden fabricarse a temperaturas de proceso relativamente bajas y, por tanto, no sólo en vidrio, sino también en sustratos poliméricos. Para mejorar el rendimiento dinámico de los dispositivos y circuitos TFT, una reducción agresiva de la longitud de los canales provoca efectos extrínsecos en los dispositivos que tienen que ser capturados por modelos compactos. Esta tesis presenta modelos analíticos, basados en la física, de la degradación de la pendiente subumbral, el roll-off del voltaje umbral y el efecto DIBL en TFTs coplanares y escalonados que pueden ser implementados en cualquier modelo compacto de corriente continua arbitrario que esté definido por el voltaje umbral y la pendiente subumbral. Por lo tanto, la ecuación diferencial de Laplace se resuelve para la geometría coplanar y escalonada aplicando la transformación Schwarz-Christoffel. Las soluciones del potencial sirven de base para la definición de las ecuaciones del modelo. Además, se desarrollan modelos compactos de las barreras Schottky dependientes de la polarización en las interfaces fuente/semiconductor y drenador/semiconductor en los TFT coplanares y escalonados, que modelan la inyección y la eyección de portadores de carga, respectivamente, como corriente de emisión termoiónicaOrganic thin-film transistors (TFTs) are promising devices for flexible active-matrix displays and sensor arrays, since they can be fabricated at relatively low process temperatures and thus not only on glass, but also on polymeric substrates. In order to improve the dynamic TFT and circuit performance, an aggressive reduction of the channel length causes extrinsic de-vice effects that have to be captured by compact models. This dissertation presents analytical, physics-based models of the subthreshold-swing degra-dation, the thresholdvoltage roll-off and DIBL effects in coplanar and staggered TFTs that can be implemented in any arbitrary compact dc model that are defined by the threshold voltage and the subthreshold swing. Therefore, Laplace’s differential equation is solved for the coplanar and staggered geometry by applying the Schwarz-Christoffel transformation. The potential solutions serve as a basis for the definition of the model equations. Further-more, compact models of the biasdependent Schottky barriers at the source/semiconductor and drain/semiconductor interfaces in coplanar and staggered TFTs are derived, which model the charge carriers injection and ejection, respectively, as thermionic emission cur-rent. Thereby, in case of the source barrier, the Schottky barrier lowering effect due to im-age charges is captured and therefore, an analytical expression of the electric field at the source barrier is derived

Charge-Based Compact Modeling of Capacitances and Low-Frequency Noise in Organic Thin-Film Transistors

Els transistors orgànics de capa prima són candidats prometedors per a noves aplicacions electròniques a causa de la possibilitat de fabricar dispositius electrònics orgànics a baixes temperatures sobre substrats flexibles com el plàstic o el paper. Aquesta tesi doctoral tracta del desenvolupament d'un model compacte basat en la càrrega per a la descripció del comportament capacitiu i del soroll de baixa freqüència en transistors orgànics de capa prima. A partir d'un model de corrent continu existent, es deriven expressions per a les càrregues totals en condicions d'operació quasi estàtica. Els efectes no quasistàtics es capturen mitjançant diferents mètodes, com ara l'enfocament de segmentació de canals o funcions d'escalat depenents de la freqüència de les àrees del transistor on es calculen les càrregues. El model de les càrregues totals es verifica mitjançant mesures de capacitat d'un TFT orgànic esglaonat i per simulacions numèriques de TFT orgànics en les arquitectures esglaonades i coplanars mitjançant el simulador de dispositiu Sentaurus TCAD. Els models no quasistàtics es verifiquen mitjançant mesures d'admitància depenents de la freqüència d'un transistor esglaonat i per mesures de paràmetres de dispersió de transistors coplanars i esglalonats. El model compacte s'implementa en el llenguatge de descripció de hardware Verilog-A i la simulació d'un amplificador diferencial es compara amb les mesures, amb les quals es mostra un bon acord. El model de soroll es verifica mitjançant mesures de TFT orgànics esglalonats i simulacions TCAD. El model compacte mostra en general una bona concordança i flexibilitat en general pel que fa a l'arquitectura del dispositiu (per exemple, esglaonat o coplanar) i els materials utilitzats.Los transistores orgánicos de capa fina son candidatos prometedores para nuevas aplicaciones electrónicas debido a la posibilidad de fabricar dispositivos electrónicos orgánicos a bajas temperaturas en sustratos flexibles como plástico o papel. Esta tesis doctoral trata del desarrollo de un modelo compacto basado en la carga para la descripción del comportamiento capacitivo y el ruido de baja frecuencia en transistores orgánicos de capa fina. A partir de un modelo DC existente, se desarrollan expresiones para las cargas totales en condiciones de operación cuasiestáticas. Los efectos no cuasiestáticos se capturan mediante diferentes métodos, como la aproximación de segmentación del canal o las funciones de escalado dependientes de la frecuencia de las áreas del transistor donde se calculan las cargas. El modelo para las cargas totales se verifica mediante medidas de capacitancia de un TFT orgánico escalonado y mediante simulaciones numéricas de TFT orgánicos en las arquitecturas escalonada y coplanar utilizando el simulador de dispositivo TCAD Sentaurus. Los modelos no cuasiestáticos se verifican mediante medidas de admitancia dependientes de la frecuencia de un transistor escalonado y mediante medidas de parámetros de dispersión de transistores coplanares y escalonados. El modelo compacto se implementó en el lenguaje de descripción de hardware Verilog-A y la simulación de un amplificador diferencial se compara con medidas, observándose una buena concordancia. El modelo de ruido se verifica mediante medidas de TFT orgánicos escalonados y mediante simulaciones TCAD. El modelo compacto muestra en general una buena concordancia y flexibilidad con respecto a la arquitectura del dispositivo (p. ej. escalonado o coplanar) y los materiales utilizados.Organic thin-film transistors are promising candidates for novel electronics applications due to the possibility of fabricating organic electronic devices at low temperatures on flexible substrates like plastic or paper. This doctoral thesis deals with the development of a charge-based compact model for the description of the capacitive behavior and the low-frequency noise in organic thin-film transistors. Based on an existing DC model, expressions for the total charges under quasistatic operation conditions are derived. Non-quasistatic effects are captured by different methods, such as the channel-segmentation approach or frequency-dependent scaling functions of the areas in the transistor where charges are calculated. The model for the total charges is verified by capacitance measurements of a staggered organic TFT and by numerical simulations of organic TFTs in the staggered and coplanar architectures using the device simulator Sentaurus TCAD. The non-quasistatic models are verified by frequency-dependent admittance measurements of a staggered transistor and by scattering-parameter measurements of coplanar and staggered transistors. The compact model is implemented in the hardware description language Verilog-A and the simulation of a differential amplifier is compared to measurements, which shows a good agreement. The noise model is verified by measurements of staggered organic TFTs and by TCAD simulations. The compact model shows an overall good agreement and flexibility with respect to the device architecture (e. g. staggered or coplanar) and the used materials

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe use of multicarrier techniques has allowed the rapid expansion of broadband wireless communications. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has been the most dominant technology in the past decade. It has been deployed in both indoor Wi-Fi and cellular environments, and has been researched for use in underwater acoustic channels. Recent works in wireless communications include the extension of OFDM to multiple access applications. Multiple access OFDM, or orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), has been implemented in the third generation partnership project (3GPP) long- term evolution (LTE) downlink. In order to reduce the intercarrier interference (ICI) when user's synchronization is relaxed, filterbank multicarrier communication (FBMC) systems have been proposed. The first contribution made in this dissertation is a novel study of the classical FBMC systems that were presented in 1960s. We note that two distinct methods were presented then. We show that these methods are closely related through a modulation and a time/frequency scaling step. For cellular channels, OFDM also has the weakness of relatively large peak-to-average power ratios (PAPR). A special form of OFDM for the uplink of multiple access networks, called single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA), has been developed to mitigate this issue. In this regard, this dissertation makes two contributions. First, we develop an optimization method for designing an effective precoding method for SC-FDMA systems. Second, we show how an equivalent to SC-FDMA can be developed for systems that are based on FBMC. In underwater acoustic communications applications, researchers are investigating the use of multicarrier communication systems like OFDM in underwater channels. The movement of the communicating vehicles scales the received signal along the time axis, which is often referred to as Doppler scaling. To undo the signal degradation, researchers have investigated methods to estimate the Doppler scaling factor and restore the original signal using resampling. We investigate a method called nonuniform fast Fourier transform (NUFFT) and apply that to increase the precision in the detection and correction of the Doppler scaling factor. NUFFT is applied to both OFDM and FBMC and its performance over the experimental data obtained from at sea experiments is investigated

Analysis of PAPR Reduction in 5G communication

The goal of this thesis is to analyze PAPR reduction performance in 5G communication. 5G communication technology is beyond 4G and LTE technology and expected to be employed around 2020. Research is going on for standardization of 5G technology. One of the key objective of 5G technology is to achieve high data rate (10Gbps). For this a large bandwidth is needed. Since limited frequency resources are available, the frequency spectrum should be efficiently utilized to obtain high data rate. Also to utilize white space, cognitive radio networks are needed. In cognitive radio network very low out of band radiation is desired. OFDM is used in 4G communication but it has the drawback of low spectral efficiency and high out of band radiation, which makes it a poor choice for 5G communication. So for 5G communication new waveform is required. FBMC, UFMC, GFDM are some of the waveform candidates for 5G communication. FBMC is a potential candidate for 5G communication and it is used in many 5G projects around the world. In this thesis FBMC is used as a waveform candidate for 5G communication. High PAPR is always a problem in multicarrier communication system. FBMC is also a multicarrier communication system, so it also suffers from high PAPR problem. To reduce the PAPR several PAPR reduction techniques have been proposed over the last few decades. Tone injection and companding are two promising techniques, which are used in PAPR reduction of multicarrier communication system. In this thesis a combined scheme of tone injection and companding is used, which gives significant performance improvement compared to the tone injection and companding techniques taken separately. Simulation is performed to analyses the PAPR and BER performance of FBMC-FMT and FBMC-SMT system. Also a new clipping based PAPR reduction scheme is proposed in this thesis. For this scheme simulation is performed to analyze the PAPR performance of FBMC-FMT, FBMC-SMT and FBMC-CMT system. All the simulations are performed in MATLAB

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe demand for high speed communication has been increasing in the past two decades. Multicarrier communication technology has been suggested to address this demand. Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is the most widely used multicarrier technique. However, OFDM has a number of disadvantages in time-varying channels, multiple access, and cognitive radios. On the other hand, filterbank multicarrier (FBMC) communication has been suggested as an alternative to OFDM that can overcome the disadvantages of OFDM. In this dissertation, we investigate the application of filtered multitone (FMT), a subset of FBMC modulation methods, to slow fading and fast fading channels. We investigate the FMT transmitter and receiver in continuous and discrete time domains. An efficient implementation of FMT systems is derived and the conditions for perfect reconstruction in an FBMC communication system are presented. We derive equations for FMT in slow fading channels that allow evaluation of FMT when applied to mobile wireless communication systems. We consider using fractionally spaced per tone channel equalizers with different number of taps. The numerical results are presented to investigate the performance of these equalizers. The numerical results show that single-tap equalizers suffice for typical wireless channels. The equalizer design study is advanced by introducing adaptive equalizers which use channel estimation. We derive equations for a minimum mean square error (MMSE) channel estimator and improve the channel estimation by considering the finite duration of channel impulse response. The results of optimum equalizers (when channel is known perfectly) are compared with those of the adaptive equalizers, and it is found that a loss of 1 dB or less incurs. We also introduce a new form of FMT which is specially designed to handle doubly dispersive channels. This method is called FMT-dd (FMT for doubly dispersive channels). The proposed FMT-dd is applied to two common methods of data symbol orientation in the time-frequency space grid; namely, rectangular and hexagonal lattices. The performance of these methods along with OFDM and the conventional FMT are compared and a significant improvement in performance is observed. The FMT-dd design is applied to real-world underwater acoustic (UWA) communication channels. The experimental results from an at-sea experiment (ACOMM10) show that this new design provides a significant gain over OFDM. The feasibility of implementing a MIMO system for multicarrier UWA communication channels is studied through computer simulations. Our study emphasizes the bandwidth efficiency of multicarrier MIMO communications .We show that the value of MIMO to UWA communication is very limited

Cost-Effective Spectrally-Efficient Optical Transceiver Architectures for Metropolitan and Regional Links

The work presented herein explores cost-effective optical transceiver architectures for access, metropolitan and regional links. The primary requirement in such links is cost-effectiveness and secondly, spectral efficiency. The bandwidth/data demand is driven by data-intensive Internet applications, such as cloud-based services and video-on-demand, and is rapidly increasing in access and metro links. Therefore, cost-effective optical transceiver architectures offering high information spectral densities (ISDs > 1(b/s)/Hz) need to be implemented over metropolitan distances. Then, a key question for each link length and application is whether coherent- or direct (non-coherent) detection technology offers the best cost and performance trade-off. The performance and complexity limits of both technologies have been studied. Single polarization direct detection transceivers have been reviewed, focusing on their achievable ISDs and reach. It is concluded that subcarrier modulation (SCM) technique combined with single sideband (SSB) and high-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signaling, enabled by digital signal processing (DSP) based optical transceivers, must be implemented in order to exceed an ISD of 1 (b/s)/Hz in direct-detection links. The complexity can be shifted from the optical to the electrical domain using such transceivers, and hence, the cost can be minimized. In this regard, a detailed performance comparison of two spectrally-efficient direct detection SCM techniques, namely Nyquist-SCM and OFDM, is presented by means of simulations. It is found out that Nyquist-SCM format offers the transmission distances more than double that of OFDM due to its higher resilience to signal-signal beating interference. Following this, dispersion-precompensated SSB 4- and 16-QAM Nyquist-SCM signal formats were experimentally demonstrated using in-phase and quadrature (IQ)-modulators at net optical ISDs of 1.2 and 2 (b/s)/Hz over 800 km and 323 km of standard single-mode fibre (SSMF), respectively. These demonstrations represent record net optical ISDs over such distances among the reported single polarization wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) systems. Furthermore, since the cost-effectiveness is crucial, the optical complexity of Nyquist-SCM transmitters can be significantly reduced by using low-cost modulators and high-linewidth lasers. A comprehensive theoretical study on SSB signal generation using IQ- and dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulators (DD-MZMs) was carried out to assess their performance for WDM direct detection links. This was followed by an experimental demonstration of WDM transmission over 242 km of SSMF with a net optical ISD of 1.5 (b/s)/Hz, the highest achieved ISD using a DD-MZM-based transmitter. Following the assessment of direct detection technology using various transmitter designs, cost-effective simplified coherent receiver architectures for access and metro networks have been investigated. The optical complexity of the conventional (polarization- and phase-diverse) coherent receiver is significantly simplified, i.e., consisting of a single 3 dB coupler and balanced photodetector, utilizing heterodyne reception and Alamouti polarization-time block coding. Although the achievable net optical ISD is halved compared to a conventional coherent receiver due to Alamouti coding, its receiver sensitivity provides significant gain over a direct detection receiver at M-ary QAM formats where M ≥16

Experimental and theoretical determination of the transport properties of n-AlxGa1-xSb/GaSb

The work in this thesis reports on the design, growth, fabrication, measurement and analysis of n-GaSb/Al0.2Ga0.8Sb heterostructures. Initially a growth study was completed in order to minimise the native n-type GaSb defects (usually of p ~ × 1017cm−3 ) and to calibrate the n-type doping (achieved using Te). This growth study then informed simulations of the band structure and the transport properties via Schrödinger-Poisson and transport lifetime modelling, allowing an investigation for the design of a high mobility n-GaSb/Al0.2Ga0.8Sb structure, to ensure correct confinement. The optimum designs from the simulation study were then grown and fabricated into 8-pad geometry non-gated Hall bars. The metallisation recipe researched further as initial recipes were deemed unsuitable. The resulting devices were then measured as a function of magnetic field and temperature to obtain the transport properties (mobility and carrier density).It has been shown that an optimum set of growth conditions (Tg= 475 °C, V/III=1.3) reduces the p-type native defects resulting in a hole concentration of 5 × 1016 cm−3 at room temperature. Simulations of AlGaSb/GaSb heterostructures were completed, investigating the conduction band and the effect of the p-type defects. It was found that doping below the well is necessary for confinement in these structures. Both square and triangular quantum wells were grown on semi-insulating GaAs substrates with an interfacial misfit array to prevent strain. These samples were fabricated where the metallisation recipe Pd/In/Pd/Au was used, allowing cold temperature measurements. Measurements of the transport properties across a temperature range of (3-300) K at lowfield (< 3 T) resulted in a peak mobility of 9030 cm2 /Vs, where background impurity scattering was shown to be the limiting scattering rate. High field measurements of a doped heterojunction resulted in Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations visible up to 100 K. As the first transport measurements of confined n-GaSb/AlGaSb, these results inform the direction of optimisation for high mobility devices in this material

Green and fast strategies for energy-efficient preparation of the covalent organic framework TpPa-1

Three synthesis procedures for the covalent-organic framework (COF) TpPa-1 are studied with the purpose of setting up the most promising one in a fast and green way, leading to a more environmentally friendly and sustainable process. With conventional heating, good crystallinity and a high BET specific surface area (SSA) of up to 1007 m2 ⋅ g−1 are achieved at 170 °C for 3 days using water as the quintessential green solvent. However, the application of microwave radiation in the synthesis for this crystalline porous polymer allows reaction times to be shortened to 30 min while maintaining structural and textural properties (BET SSA of 928 m2 ⋅ g−1) and obtaining yields close to 98 % (vs. 90 % in the hydrothermal synthesis). The water-assisted mechanochemical synthesis is also an environmentally friendly synthetic approach; with heating at 170 °C in a two-step process (10+10 min), high crystallinity is achieved, a BET SSA of 960  m2 ⋅ g−1 and a yield of 98 % for TpPa-1