PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT OF p-TYPE ORGANIC THIN FILM TRANSISTORS USING ZINC OXIDE NANOSTRUCTURES ANSHUMAN KUMAR, RAMESH R. NAVAN, AJAY KUSHWAHA, M. ASLAM * and V. RAMGOPAL RAO † Indian Institute of Technology Bombay Powai, Mumbai 400076, Maharashtra, India * m.aslam@iitb.ac.in † rrao@ee.iitb.ac.in This paper reports the performance enhancement of nanocomposite thin ¯lm transistors fab- ricated using ZnO dispersed in p-type polymer, poly 3-hexylthiophene (P3HT). The ZnO nanostructures considered here are nanorods (300500 nm), that were deposited in the high temperature zone during vapor phase deposition involving carbothermal reduction of solid zinc precursor. Organic Thin Film Transistors (OTFTs) based on the dispersion of these ZnO nanostructures in the p-type organic semiconductor, P3HT, show a mobility enhancement by 10 times for the organicinorganic composite ( 4  10 3 cm 2 /V s) compared to its pristine state ( 4  10 4 cm 2 /V s). The results presented here show a great promise for the perform- ance enhancement of p-type solution processable FETs. Keywords : Nanocomposite thin ¯lm transistors; nanorods; organic semiconductors; zinc oxide. 1. Introduction Nanostructures like nanowires, nanorods and tetra- pods exhibit unique properties for novel electronic and optical applications. The quest for newer physics and applications has led to an increased emphasis on bottom up approaches for self assembled nanostructures. Moreover the unique morphologies exhibited by several nanostructures make them ideal for applications like gas sensors, 1 photodetectors, 2,3 light emitters, 48 transistors 9,10 and waveguides. 11 Despite these advances, using nanocomposite materials for organic ¯eld e®ect transistors (OFET) applications remain scarce. OFETs have been recently reported in the fabrication of active matrix displays and integrated circuits for logic and mem- ory chips. 12 Even though numerous reports exist in the area, OFET devices based on nanocomposite materials fabricated using solution processing are still not well known. Hence, dispersing nanomaterials in a polymer matrix to obtain organicinorganic nanocomposite devices with higher mobilities is of interest for both basic research and application. In the present study, we dispersed ZnO nano and microstructures in the poly 3-hexylthiophene (P3HT) polymer matrix for the construction of organic inorganic hybrid devices for OFET applications. We chose ZnO nanomaterials and P3HT polymer because these two materials are widely studied for their intriguing semiconducting properties. In current literature, there have been reports on inorganic tetrapods mixed with polymers to fabricate hybrid photovoltaic devices. 1315 Herein, the enhanced electrical properties of P3HTZnO nanocomposite devices have been found to have enhanced p-type mobility up to ten times compared to the pristine polymer P3HT device. International Journal of Nanoscience Vol. 10, Nos. 4 & 5 (2011) 761764 # . c World Scienti¯c Publishing Company DOI: 10.1142/S0219581X11008800 761