Determination of charge transport activation energy and injection barrier in organic semiconductor devices

Abstract

Charge carrier transport in organic semiconductor devices is thermally activated with characteristic activation energies in the range of 0.2–0.6 eV, leading to strongly temperature-dependent behaviour. For designing efficient organic semiconductor materials and devices, it is therefore indispensable to understand the origin of these activation energies. We propose that in bilayer organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) employing a polar electron transport layer, as well as in metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) devices, the hole injection barrier Einj and the hole mobility activation energy Eμ can be decoupled from each other if temperature-dependent capacitance-frequency (C-f-T) and MIS-CELIV (charge extraction by linearly increasing voltage) experiments are combined. While the C-f-T signal contains information of both injection and transport, the CELIV current is expected to be insensitive to the electrode injection properties. We employ numerical drift-diffusion simulations to investigate the accuracy of this analytical parameter extraction approach and to develop criteria for its validity. We show that the implicit assumption of constant charge density and field profiles leads to systematic errors in determining the activation energies. Thus, one should be aware of the intrinsic limitations of the analytical Arrhenius fit, and for more accurate parameter determination a full drift-diffusion modelling is advised. Applying the analytical method to a standard bilayer OLED, we find that the total activation energy of 0.5 eV for the hole current can be split into contributions of ≈0.25 eV each for injection barrier and mobility. Finally, we also discuss the broader applicability of this method for other device stacks and material combinations.

Molecular Engineering of Organic Spacer Cations for Efficient and Stable Formamidinium Perovskite Solar Cell

“…The densities of charge‐carrier defects in perovskite films have been confirmed using space‐charge‐limited‐current (SCLC) analysis. [ 35,36 ] Electron‐only devices were fabricated (Figure S19, Supporting Information). The electron trap density n t was obtained from the relationship V TFL = exp( n t L 2 /(2 εε 0 )), where V TFL is voltage at which trap filling begins, L (=500 nm) is the thickness of the perovskite layer, and ε (=32) is the relative dielectric constant of the perovskite.…”

Opto-electronic characterization of third-generation solar cells

“…Similar to DLTS full trap spectra can be extracted analysing the capacitance-frequency relation [ 91 ]. It is also possible to determine activation energies for mobility and injection [ 49 ].…”

Investigation of negative magneto-conductance properties of cobalt phthalocyanine thin films

“…2. The Arrhenius equation for the mobility follows the equation [38] where E a is the activation energy and μ 0 is the infinite temperature hole mobility, The calculated activation energy is 1.18 meV and the infinite temperature extrapolation of the hole mobility is μ 0 = 6.01 × 10 −4 cm 2 /Vs. Figure 3 depicts the MC response of the single layer device at room temperature.…”