ORGANIC ELECTRIC SOLID-STATE DEVICES

**Definition:** This place covers:

Electric solid-state devices having organic materials as the active layers, or using a combination of organic materials and other materials as the active layers.

This includes the following kind of devices:

Processes and apparatus specially adapted for the manufacture or treatment of such devices.

Organic materials used in active layers, layers having high carrier mobility or electrodes of devices covered by this subclass.

**Limiting references (this place does not cover):** - Organic resistors without potential barriers and not being specially adapted for integrated devices -> H01C - Organic capacitors, e.g. organic polymer capacitors, without potential barriers and not being specially adapted for integrated devices -> H01G - Organic electronic memory devices -> H10B - Organic thermoelectric devices; Organic thermomagnetic devices -> H10N10/00 , H10N15/00 , H10N19/00 - Organic piezoelectric or electrostrictive devices -> H10N30/00 , H10N39/00 - Organic magnetostrictive devices -> H10N35/00 , H10N39/00 - Organic galvanomagnetic or Hall-effect devices -> H10N50/00 , H10N52/00 , H10N59/00 - Organic superconducting devices -> H10N60/00 , H10N69/00 - Organic solid-state devices without potential barriers, and specially adapted for rectifying, amplifying, oscillating or switching -> H10N70/00 , H10N79/00

**Glossary:** - chip: a piece of a wafer or a substrate that has been processed to contain devices therein or thereon. The expression "diced chip" refers to the result of dicing a wafer or a substrate into a plurality of chips, whereas "undiced chip" refers to a chip before dicing or with no dicing. - device: an electric circuit element (e.g. diode, transistor, LED, etc.); (depending on the context) can also refer to an integrated device (e.g. CMOS-IC, DRAM device, etc.). A device may be in the form of a bare or packaged chip. - dopant: the atoms or compounds added to a material during doping - doping: the intentional addition of a small quantity of atoms or compounds into a material to achieve a desired characteristic, e.g. to produce an n-type or p-type material - individual: refers to: an electric circuit element not being an integrated device; or a component of an integrated device. Examples of individual devices include: diodes, transistors, photovoltaic cells, Josephson-junction devices, light-emitting diodes [LED], organic LEDs or a single LED component within an integrated device. - integrated device: a device consisting of a plurality of semiconductor or other solid-state electric circuit elements formed in or on a common substrate - integrated circuit: an integrated device where all the electric circuit elements (e.g. diodes, transistors, LEDs, etc.) are formed in or on a common substrate, including interconnections between the elements - component: an electric circuit element (e.g. diode, transistor, LED, etc.) that is one of a plurality of elements formed in or on a common substrate, e.g. in an integrated device - wafer: it can be one of the following: (a) a slice of semiconductor or electric solid-state active material. For example: a slice of silicon; a slice of a semiconducting compound, e.g. gallium nitride [GaN]; a slice of lithium tantalate [LiTaO 3 ] for superconductor applications. (b) A multilayered laminate, having at least one layer of semiconductor or electric solid-state active material, the layer being meant to be processed into devices. For example: silicon-on-insulator [SOI]; silicon-on-glass [SOG]; silicon-on-sapphire [SOS]; a composite wafer comprising silicon carbide [SiC] on polycrystalline silicon [Si] support; a layer of semiconducting nanowires on glass. A wafer is typically processed by (e.g.) deposition, etching, doping or diffusion, and is then typically diced into chips. - body: the region of semiconductor (resp. solid-state) material(s) within which, or at the surface of which, the physical effects that are characteristic of the device occur, and any bordering semiconductor (resp. solid-state) material(s) that are contiguous with this region. Examples: in a field-effect transistor [FET], the physical effects occur in the channel region between the source and the drain. The semiconductor body includes the channel region, the source and drain regions, and any contiguous semiconductor material; in a light-emitting diode [LED], the physical effects occur at a junction of active semiconductor layers. The semiconductor body includes these active semiconductor layers and any contiguous semiconductor layers, such as buffer layers, possibly a growth substrate, etc., that are between the cathode and anode electrodes; in a thermoelectric device, the solid-state body includes all solid-state materials in the path of current between the electrodes. - electrode: a conductive region in or on the semiconductor body or solid-state body of a device (and other than the body itself) which exerts an electrical influence on the body, irrespective of whether or not an external electrical connection is made thereto. The term covers metallic regions which exert electrical influence on the body through an insulating region (e.g. in intentional non-parasitic capacitive coupling), or inductive coupling arrangements. In a capacitive coupling arrangement, the dielectric region is regarded as part of the electrode. The overall conductive wiring may comprise multiple portions. In such a case, only the wiring portions that exert an electrical influence on the body are considered portions of the electrode. Examples: conductive layer(s) in direct physical contact with the body; conductive region(s) exerting an inductive coupling onto the body; a multilayer structure which exerts influence on the body through an insulating region, e.g. in intentional non-parasitic capacitive coupling. - interconnection: a conductive arrangement for conducting electric current from an electrode of a circuit element to another part of the circuit. Examples include metal wirings. - container: a solid construction in which (one or more) devices are placed, or which is formed around the devices, for forming packaged devices. A container requires a partial or total enclosure and it may also comprise a filling. - encapsulation: an enclosure consisting of (one or more) layers, e.g. comprising organic polymers, which at least partially enclose the (one or more) devices, thereby protecting them. An encapsulation is often used to hermetically seal devices. - field-effect: refers to semiconductor technology wherein a voltage applied to a gate electrode creates an electric field that allows for control of current near the interface of the gate and the body, e.g. to create an inversion channel between the source and drain of a MOSFET - package: the collection of all elements, which are external to the chip, that protect the chip or connect it to another object. Package therefore covers encapsulations, containers, package substrates, interposers, heatsinks or the like. Package does not include objects at a higher system level, like circuit boards and beyond, e.g. a housing in which the circuit board is enclosed. - unipolar: refers to semiconductor technology that primarily involves one type only of charge carrier, i.e. it involves either holes or electrons but not both - bipolar: refers to semiconductor technology that involves multi-carrier-type operation, i.e. which simultaneously uses both electrons and holes as charge carriers - MIS: metal-insulator-semiconductor - MOS: metal-oxide-semiconductor - FET: field-effect transistor - MISFET: metal-insulator-semiconductor field-effect transistor - TFT: thin-film transistor - active material: the material within which the physical effects that are characteristic of the device occur - auxiliary electrode: one part of a multi-layered electrode, often being metallic and intended to increase the conductivity of transparent oxide electrodes - coordination compound: a material having a chemical structure in which a central atom is chemically bonded to surrounding nonmetal atoms or groups of atoms. The central atom may be a metal atom or may be a metalloid (e.g. B, Si, Ge, As, Sb, Te or Po). - electroluminescent layer, emissive layer: the layer within which electrons and holes combine, resulting in light emission - organic device: a device that comprises one or more organic materials as the active material, e.g. using only organic active materials or e.g. using a combination of an organic material and another material - radiation-sensitive: refers to a device or a component that is sensitive to infrared radiation, light, electromagnetic radiation of shorter wavelength or corpuscular radiation - tandem OLED: an OLED that comprises multiple electroluminescent units between one set of electrodes and a charge generation layer between the electroluminescent units - tandem PV cell: a photovoltaic cell that comprises multiple stacked photovoltaic units, e.g. p-n junctions, between one set of electrodes. Often each unit is made from a semiconductor of different bandgap energy, so each is sensitive to a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum. - terminal: the electrode or interconnection within a device, which serves as a connecting point between electrodes or interconnections within the device and interconnections that may be in the device's package or may be external to the device. An example is a bond pad on the cathode of an OLED, which may connect between the cathode electrode and a bonding wire in the OLED's package. - tiled display: a display that comprises a juxtaposition of smaller interconnected panels in order to achieve a large-area display