Review of DC and AC core compact models and device performance in organic transistors

Abstract

Organic transistors offer lightweight, flexible, and low-cost platforms for large-area electronics, making them particularly attractive for applications in wearables and biosensing. Their effective use requires detailed characterization and accurate simulation, with compact models providing the foundation for predicting device behavior and enabling reliable circuit-level design. Yet, the diversity of organic semiconductors and the complexity of charge transport demand multiple core modeling approaches, each built on distinct physical assumptions. This review first summarizes reported lateral and vertical organic transistor architectures, outlining their structural principles and material implementations. It then considers core compact physics-based models for both DC and AC operation, emphasizing their formulations, underlying assumptions, and the physical effects they incorporate. Finally, it reviews reported DC and AC characteristics across diverse material systems, with particular attention to bias-normalized parameters that enable consistent and meaningful cross-study comparisons. By exploring existing core models and performance analyses, this review highlights the fundamental physical principles incorporated into reported compact models and bridges device-level physics with application-oriented circuit design. It offers a comparative perspective on modeling strategies suitable for flexible and biointegrated electronics, while identifying key overlaps in the literature and providing a foundational framework for efficient future model development. Additionally, the review underscores the importance of harmonized terminology to accelerate the development of next-generation models and enhance consistency across studies.