Transport in organic semiconductors in large electric fields: From thermal activation to field emission

Understanding charge transport in organic semiconductors in large electric fields is relevant to many applications. We present transport measurements in organic field-effect transistors based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) and 6,13-bis(triisopropyl-silylethynyl) pentacene with short channels, from room temperature down to 4.2 K. Near 300 K transport in both systems is well described by thermally assisted hopping with Poole-Frenkel-like enhancement of the mobility. At low temperatures and large gate voltages, transport in both materials becomes nearly temperature independent, crossing over into field-driven tunneling. These data, particularly in TIPS-pentacene, show that great caution must be exercised when considering more exotic (e.g., Tomonaga-Luttinger Liquid) interpretations of transport.