Current saturation and Coulomb interactions in organic single-crystal transistors

Electronic transport through rubrene single-crystal field-effect transistors (FETs) is investigated experimentally in the high carrier density regime (n ≃ 0.1 carrier molecule−1). In this regime, we find that the current does not increase linearly with the density of charge carriers, and tends to saturate. At the same time, the activation energy for transport unexpectedly increases with increasing n. We perform a theoretical analysis in terms of a well-defined microscopic model for interacting Fröhlich polarons, which quantitatively accounts for our experimental observations. This work is particularly significant for our understanding of electronic transport through organic FETs.