Strain-tunable superconducting field-effect transistor with an organic strongly-correlated electron system

Chasing the spin gap through the phase diagram of a frustrated Mott insulator

The quest for entangled spin excitations has stimulated intense research on frustrated magnetic systems. For almost two decades, the triangular-lattice Mott insulator κ-(BEDT-TTF)₂Cu₂(CN)₃ has been one of the hottest candidates for a gapless quantum spin liquid with itinerant spinons. Very recently, however, this scenario was overturned as electron-spin-resonance (ESR) studies unveiled a spin gap, calling for reevaluation of the magnetic ground state. Here we achieve a precise mapping of this spin-gapped phase through the Mott transition by ultrahigh-resolution strain tuning. Our transport experiments reveal a reentrance of charge localization below T^⋆ = 6 K associated with a gap size of 30-50 K. The negative slope of the insulator-metal boundary, dT^⋆/dp < 0, evidences the low-entropy nature of the spin-singlet ground state. By tuning the enigmatic '6K anomaly' through the phase diagram of κ-(BEDT-TTF)₂Cu₂(CN)₃, we identify it as the transition to a valence-bond-solid phase, in agreement with previous thermal expansion and magnetic resonance studies. This spin-gapped insulating state persists at T → 0 until unconventional superconductivity and metallic transport proliferate.

Switching charge states in quasi-2D molecular conductors

2D molecular entities build next-generation electronic devices, where abundant elements of organic molecules are attractive due to the modern synthetic and stimuli control through chemical, conformational, and electronic modifications in electronics. Despite its promising potential, the insufficient control over charge states and electronic stabilities must be overcome in molecular electronic devices. Here, we show the reversible switching of modulated charge states in an exfoliatable 2D-layered molecular conductor based on bis(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene molecular dimers. The multiple stimuli application of cooling rate, current, voltage, and laser irradiation in a concurrent manner facilitates the controllable manipulation of charge crystal, glass, liquid, and metal phases. The four orders of magnitude switching of electric resistance are triggered by stimuli-responsive charge distribution among molecular dimers. The tunable charge transport in 2D molecular conductors reveals the kinetic process of charge configurations under stimuli, promising to add electric functions in molecular circuitry.

Emerged Metallicity in Molecular Ferromagnetic Wires

Supramolecular engineering bridges molecular assembly with macromolecular charge-transfer salts, promising the design to construct supramolecular architectures that integrate cooperative properties difficult or impossible to find in conventional lattices. Here, we report the crystal engineering design and kinetic growth of one-dimensional supramolecular wires composed of bis(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene (ET⁺) cation and polymeric Cu[N(CN)₂]₂^- anion. A bulk ferromagnetic order is discovered for filling up the gap where strong ferromagnetism is missing in such ET molecule-based charge-transfer salts. Metallicity is induced by electric current from the semiconducting wire, which is attributed to strain effect by tuning its close molecular contact. This structural feature is evidenced through the combination of various mechanistic spectroscopic studies. Electric dipole is established from the close molecular contacts and is suggestive to stabilize ferromagnetic spin interaction through anions bridging spin sites. The breakthrough shown here provides a pathway to explore low-dimensional supramolecular materials exhibiting strong electron correlation, metallicity, and ferromagnetism.

Suppressing Interface Strain for Eliminating Double-Slope Behaviors: Towards Ideal Conformable Polymer Field-Effect Transistors

High-mobility polymer field-effect transistors (PFETs) are being actively explored for applications in soft electronic skin and low-cost flexible displays because of their superior solution processability, mechanical flexibility, and stretchability. However, most of high-mobility PFETs often deviate from the idealized behavior with variable mobility, large threshold voltage, and high off-state current, which masks their intrinsic properties and significantly impedes their practical applications. Here, it is first revealed that interface strain between polymer thin film and rigid substrate plays a crucial role in determining the ideality of PFETs, and demonstrate that various ideal conformable PFETs can be successfully fabricated by releasing strain. It is found that strain in film can be released by one-step peeling strategy, which can reduce π-π stacking distance and suppress generation of oxygen doped carriers, thereby obtaining linearly injected charge carriers and decreased carrier concentration in channel, eventually realizing ideal PFETs. More impressively, the fabricated ideal conformable PFET array displays outstanding conformability to curved objects, and meanwhile showing excellent organic light-emitting display driving capability. The work clarifies the effect of the interface strain on the device ideality, and strain can be effectively released by a facile peeling strategy, thus offering useful guidance for the construction of ideal conformable PFETs.

Switching of Electron and Ion Conductions by Reversible H2O Sorption in n-Type Organic Semiconductors

Polar H₂O molecules generally act as trapping sites and suppress the electron mobility of n-type organic semiconductors, making chemical design of H₂O-tolerant and responsive n-type semiconductors an important step toward multifunctional electron-ion coupling devices. The introduction of effective electrostatic interactions between potassium ions (K⁺) and carboxylate (-COO^-) anions into the electron-transporting naphthalenediimide π-framework enables the design of high-performance H₂O-tolerant n-type semiconductors with a reversible H₂O adsorption-desorption ability, where the electron mobility and K⁺ ionic conductivity were coupled with the reversible H₂O sorption behavior. The reversible H₂O adsorption into the crystals enhanced the electron mobility from 0.04 to 0.28 cm² V^-1 s^-1, whereas the K⁺ ionic conductivity decreased from 3.4 × 10^-5 to 4.7 × 10^-7 S cm^-1. Because this reversible electron-ion conducting switch is responsive to H₂O sorption behavior, it is a strong candidate for H₂O gating carrier transport systems.

A universal strategy to continuously tune the properties of materials through internal strain

We proposed a universal strategy to continuously and precisely tune the properties of materials.

Control of Organic Superconducting Field-Effect Transistor by Cooling Rate

A new superconducting field-effect transistor (FET) in the vicinity of bandwidth-controlled Mott transition was developed using molecular strongly correlated system κ-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu[N(CN)2]Br [BEDT-TTF = bis(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene] laminated on CaF2 substrate. This device exhibited significant cooling-rate dependence of resistance below about 80 K, associated with glass transition of terminal ethylene group of BEDT-TTF molecule, where more rapid cooling through glass transition temperature leads to the decrease in bandwidth. We demonstrated that the FET properties such as ON/OFF ratio and polarity can be controlled by utilizing cooling rate. Our result may give a novel insight into the design of molecule-based functional devices.

Two-dimensional ground-state mapping of a Mott-Hubbard system in a flexible field-effect device

A Mott insulator sometimes induces unconventional superconductivity in its neighbors when doped and/or pressurized. Because the phase diagram should be strongly related to the microscopic mechanism of the superconductivity, it is important to obtain the global phase diagram surrounding the Mott insulating state. However, the parameter available for controlling the ground state of most Mott insulating materials is one-dimensional owing to technical limitations. Here, we present a two-dimensional ground-state mapping for a Mott insulator using an organic field-effect device by simultaneously tuning the bandwidth and bandfilling. The observed phase diagram showed many unexpected features such as an abrupt first-order superconducting transition under electron doping, a recurrent insulating phase in the heavily electron-doped region, and a nearly constant superconducting transition temperature in a wide parameter range. These results are expected to contribute toward elucidating one of the standard solutions for the Mott-Hubbard model.

An Ambipolar Superconducting Field-Effect Transistor Operating above Liquid Helium Temperature

Superconducting (SC) devices are attracting renewed attention as the demands for quantum-information processing, meteorology, and sensing become advanced. The SC field-effect transistor (FET) is one of the elements that can control the SC state, but its variety is still limited. Superconductors at the strong-coupling limit tend to require a higher carrier density when the critical temperature (T_C ) becomes higher. Therefore, field-effect control of superconductivity by a solid gate dielectric has been limited only to low temperatures. However, recent efforts have resulted in achieving n-type and p-type SC FETs based on organic superconductors whose T_C exceed liquid He temperature (4.2 K). Here, a novel "ambipolar" SC FET operating at normally OFF mode with T_C of around 6 K is reported. Although this is the second example of an SC FET with such an operation mode, the operation temperature exceeds that of the first example, or magic-angle twisted-bilayer graphene that operates at around 1 K. Because the superconductivity in this SC FET is of unconventional type, the performance of the present device will contribute not only to fabricating SC circuits, but also to elucidating phase transitions of strongly correlated electron systems.

Kinetic approach to superconductivity hidden behind a competing order

Exploration for superconductivity is one of the research frontiers in condensed matter physics. In strongly correlated electron systems, the emergence of superconductivity is often inhibited by the formation of a thermodynamically more stable magnetic/charge order. Thus, to develop the superconductivity as the thermodynamically most stable state, the free-energy balance between the superconductivity and the competing order has been controlled mainly by changing thermodynamic parameters, such as the physical/chemical pressure and carrier density. However, such a thermodynamic approach may not be the only way to materialize the superconductivity. We present a new kinetic approach to avoiding the competing order and thereby inducing persistent superconductivity. In the transition-metal dichalcogenide IrTe₂ as an example, by using current pulse-based rapid cooling of up to ~10⁷ K s^-1, we successfully kinetically avoid a first-order phase transition to a competing charge order and uncover metastable superconductivity hidden behind. Because the electronic states at low temperatures depend on the history of thermal quenching, electric pulse applications enable nonvolatile and reversible switching of the metastable superconductivity, a unique advantage of the kinetic approach. Thus, our findings provide a new approach to developing and manipulating superconductivity beyond the framework of thermodynamics.

Field-, strain- and light-induced superconductivity in organic strongly correlated electron systems

Stimulated by the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in 1986, band-filling control of strongly correlated electron systems has been a persistent challenge over the past three decades in condensed matter science. In particular, recent efforts have been focused on electrostatic carrier doping of these materials, utilising field-effect transistor (FET) structures to find novel superconductivity. Our group found the first field-induced superconductivity in an organic-based material in 2013 and has been developing various types of superconducting organic FETs. In this perspective, we summarise our recent results on the development of novel superconducting organic FETs. In addition, this perspective describes novel functionality of superconducting FETs, such as strain- and light-responsivity. We believe that the techniques and knowledge described here will contribute to advances in future superconducting electronics as well as the understanding of superconductivity in strongly correlated electron systems.

A Free-Standing Molecular Spin-Charge Converter for Ubiquitous Magnetic-Energy Harvesting and Sensing

Magnetic-energy harvesting in a centimeter-sized free-standing (BEDT-TTF)C₆₀ charge-transfer single crystal is demonstrated. The crystal shows sensitive magnetic-, thermal-, and mechanical-sensing ability, with an excellent piezoresistance coefficient of -5.1 × 10^-6 Pa^-1 . The self-powered sensing performance, together with its solution processability and flexibility, endow it with the capability of driving a new generation of noncontact magnetic-energy harvesting and sensing technologies.

Integrated Charge Transfer in Organic Ferroelectrics for Flexible Multisensing Materials

The ultimate or end point of functional materials development is the realization of strong coupling between all energy regimes (optical, electronic, magnetic, and elastic), enabling the same material to be utilized for multifunctionalities. However, the integration of multifunctionalities in soft materials with the existence of various coupling is still in its early stage. Here, the coupling between ferroelectricity and charge transfer by combining bis(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene-C60 charge-transfer crystals with ferroelectric polyvinylidene fluoride polymer matrix is reported, which enables external stimuli-controlled polarization, optoelectronic and magnetic field sensing properties. Such flexible composite films also display a superior strain-dependent capacitance and resistance change with a giant piezoresistance coefficient of 7.89 × 10(-6) Pa(-1) . This mutual coupled material with the realization of enhanced couplings across these energy domains opens up the potential for multisensing applications.

Electron-hole doping asymmetry of Fermi surface reconstructed in a simple Mott insulator

It is widely recognized that the effect of doping into a Mott insulator is complicated and unpredictable, as can be seen by examining the Hall coefficient in high T_c cuprates. The doping effect, including the electron–hole doping asymmetry, may be more straightforward in doped organic Mott insulators owing to their simple electronic structures. Here we investigate the doping asymmetry of an organic Mott insulator by carrying out electric-double-layer transistor measurements and using cluster perturbation theory. The calculations predict that strongly anisotropic suppression of the spectral weight results in the Fermi arc state under hole doping, while a relatively uniform spectral weight results in the emergence of a non-interacting-like Fermi surface (FS) in the electron-doped state. In accordance with the calculations, the experimentally observed Hall coefficients and resistivity anisotropy correspond to the pocket formed by the Fermi arcs under hole doping and to the non-interacting FS under electron doping.

Electron or hole doping in a Mott insulator leads to superconductivity, with the mechanism obscured by multi-orbital Fermi surface reconstructions. Here, Kawasugi et al. report doping dependent Hall coefficients and resistivity anisotropy of an organic Mott insulator, revealing doping asymmetry of reconstructed Fermi surface of a single electronic orbital.