The carrier collection efficiency (ηc) and energy conversion efficiency (ηe) of polymer photovoltaic cells were improved by blending of the semiconducting polymer with C60 or its functionalized derivatives. Composite films of poly(2-methoxy-5-(2′-ethyl-hexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene vinylene) (MEH-PPV) and fullerenes exhibit ηc of about 29 percent of electrons per photon and ηe of about 2.9 percent, efficiencies that are better by more than two orders of magnitude than those that have been achieved with devices made with pure MEH-PPV. The efficient charge separation results from photoinduced electron transfer from the MEH-PPV (as donor) to C60 (as acceptor); the high collection efficiency results from a bicontinuous network of internal donor-acceptor heterojunctions.

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Polymer photovoltaic cells : enhanced efficiencies via a network of internal donor-acceptor heterojunctions

The need to develop inexpensive renewable energy sources stimulates scientific research for efficient, low-cost photovoltaic devices.1 The organic, polymer-based photovoltaic elements have introduced at least the potential of obtaining cheap and easy methods to produce energy from light.2 The possibility of chemically manipulating the material properties of polymers (plastics) combined with a variety of easy and cheap processing techniques has made polymer-based materials present in almost every aspect of modern society.3 Organic semiconductors have several advantages: (a) lowcost synthesis, and (b) easy manufacture of thin film devices by vacuum evaporation/sublimation or solution cast or printing technologies. Furthermore, organic semiconductor thin films may show high absorption coefficients4 exceeding 105 cm-1, which makes them good chromophores for optoelectronic applications. The electronic band gap of organic semiconductors can be engineered by chemical synthesis for simple color changing of light emitting diodes (LEDs).5 Charge carrier mobilities as high as 10 cm2/V‚s6 made them competitive with amorphous silicon.7 This review is organized as follows. In the first part, we will give a general introduction to the materials, production techniques, working principles, critical parameters, and stability of the organic solar cells. In the second part, we will focus on conjugated polymer/fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells, mainly on polyphenylenevinylene (PPV) derivatives/(1-(3-methoxycarbonyl) propyl-1-phenyl[6,6]C61) (PCBM) fullerene derivatives and poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT)/PCBM systems. In the third part, we will discuss the alternative approaches such as polymer/polymer solar cells and organic/inorganic hybrid solar cells. In the fourth part, we will suggest possible routes for further improvements and finish with some conclusions. The different papers mentioned in the text have been chosen for didactical purposes and cannot reflect the chronology of the research field nor have a claim of completeness. The further interested reader is referred to the vast amount of quality papers published in this field during the past decade.

Conjugated polymer-based organic solar cells

Research in the use of organic polymers as the active semiconductors in light-emitting diodes has advanced rapidly, and prototype devices now meet realistic specifications for applications. These achievements have provided insight into many aspects of the background science, from design and synthesis of materials, through materials fabrication issues, to the semiconductor physics of these polymers.

Electroluminescence in conjugated polymers

Many metal–insulator–metal systems show electrically induced resistive switching effects and have therefore been proposed as the basis for future non-volatile memories. They combine the advantages of Flash and DRAM (dynamic random access memories) while avoiding their drawbacks, and they might be highly scalable. Here we propose a coarse-grained classification into primarily thermal, electrical or ion-migration-induced switching mechanisms. The ion-migration effects are coupled to redox processes which cause the change in resistance. They are subdivided into cation-migration cells, based on the electrochemical growth and dissolution of metallic filaments, and anion-migration cells, typically realized with transition metal oxides as the insulator, in which electronically conducting paths of sub-oxides are formed and removed by local redox processes. From this insight, we take a brief look into molecular switching systems. Finally, we discuss chip architecture and scaling issues.

http://chialvo.org/Curso/UBACurso/DIA7/Papers/Aono_NatMat_07_Ionic%20Switching%20Memory.pdf

Nanoionics-based resistive switching memories

Redox‐Based Resistive Switching Memories – Nanoionic Mechanisms, Prospects, and Challenges

A high density of oxygen vacancies has been found in an experiment to determine the path of electrical conduction in Cr-doped SrTiO3 memory cells. The Cr acts as a seed for the localization of oxygen vacancies, leading to a statistically homogeneous distribution of charge carriers within the path. This warrants a controllable doping profile and improved device scaling down to the nanometer scale. The combination of laterally resolved micro-X-ray absorption spectroscopy and thermal imaging concludes that the resistance switching in Cr-doped SrTiO3 originates from an oxygen-vacancy drift to/from the electrode that was used as anode during the conditioning process. The experiments shows that this oxygen vacancy concept is crucial for the entire class of transition-metal-oxide-based bipolar resistance-change memory.

Role of Oxygen Vacancies in Cr‐Doped SrTiO3 for Resistance‐Change Memory

We have studied polyaniline and polyethylenedioxythiophene transparent electrodes for use as hole-injecting anodes in polymer light emitting diodes. The anodes were doped with a variety of polymer and monomer-based acids and cast from either water or organic solvents to determine the effect of the dopant and solvent on the hole-injection properties. We find that the anodes with polymeric dopants have improved device quantum efficiency and brightness relative to those with small molecule dopants, independent of conductivity, solvent, or type of conducting polymer. For the most conducting polymer anodes [σ>2(Ωcm)−1], diodes could be made without an indium tin oxide underlayer. These diodes show substantially slower degradation.

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Polymeric anodes for improved polymer light-emitting diode performance

Semiconducting nanowires have recently attracted considerable attention. With their unique electrical and optical properties, they offer interesting perspectives for basic research as well as for technology. A variety of technical applications, such as nanowires as parts of sensors, and electronic and photonic devices have already been demonstrated. In particular, electronic applications come more and more into focus, as the ongoing miniaturization in microelectronics demands new innovative solutions. Semiconducting nanowires, in particular epitaxially grown silicon (Si) nanowires, are considered as promising candidates for post-CMOS (CMOS: complementary metal–oxide semiconductor) logic elements owing to their potential compatibility with existing CMOS technology. One major advantage of vapor–liquid– solid(VLS-) grown nanowires compared to top-down fabricated devices is that they have well-defined surfaces. This reduces surface scattering, an issue which becomes important for devices on the nanoscale. Moreover, epitaxially grown nanowires circumvent the problem of handling and positioning nanometer-sized objects that arises in the conventional pick-and-place approach, where devices are fabricated by manipulating horizontally lying VLS-grown nanowires. The first step towards a technical realization of a nanowire logic element is the design and manufacturing of a nanowire transistor. The epitaxial growth of vertical nanowires offers advantages over other approaches: For example, the transistor gate can be wrapped around the vertically oriented nanowire. Such a wrapped-around gate allows better electrostatic gate control of the conducting channel and offers the potential to drive more current per device area than is possible in a conventional planar architecture. In this Communication, a generic process for fabricating a vertical surround-gate field-effect transistor (VS-FET) based on epitaxially grown nanowires is described. Exemplarily, we used Si nanowires and present a first electrical characterization proving the feasibility of the process developed and the basic functionality of this device. Figure 1a shows a schematic cross section through a conventional p-type MOSFET. In such a device, an inversion channel can be created close to the gate by applying a negative gate voltage. This forms a conducting channel that connects the p-doped regions between the source and drain contacts electrically. Using this concept, a silicon nanowire VS-FET would ideally require a nanowire that is n-doped in the region of the gate and p-doped elsewhere. Unfortunately, such a p-n-p structure with abrupt transitions appears difficult to realize if the nanowires are grown by means of the vapor–liquid–solid mechanism using gold as a catalyst. The difficulty here is that the dopant atoms, which are dissolved in the catalyst droplet, might act as a reservoir, thus creating a graded transition when switching to another dopant. Therefore, we used a structure consisting of an n-doped silicon nanowire grown on a p-type substrate (see Figure 1b). If the gate–drain and gate–source distances are not too long, it is electrostatically still possible to create an inversion channel along the length of the entire wire. In the proposed configuration, the p–n junction at the source contact (Figure 1a) is replaced by a Au/n-Si Schottky contact at the nanowire tip. In order to investigate the influence of the Au/n-Si Schottky contact on the nanowire (current–voltage) I–V characteristics, an array of n-doped nanowires vertically grown on an n-type (111)-oriented substrate was imbedded in a spin-coated SiO2 matrix. After removing the thin SiO2 coverage from the Au tips by a short reactive ion etching, contacts 0.6 mm in size were defined by evaporating aluminum onto the sample, such that approximately 10 nanowires were contacted in parallel. The temperature-dependent measurements (shown in Figure 2) were performed by applying a voltage to the Si substrate, while the Al top contact was held at a constant potential. The measurements reveal a strong rectifying behavior with a thermally activated current possessing an activation energy of 0.6 eV. This can be explained by the Au/n-Si Schottky contact dominating the I–V behavior. The fact that the Schottky contact is forward-biased for negative voltages furthermore proves that, as expected, electrons act as majority charge carries. Figure 1. Schematics of a) a conventional p-channel MOSFET and b) a silicon nanowire vertical surround-gate field-effect transistor.

Realization of a silicon nanowire vertical surround-gate field-effect transistor.

We have prepared a variety of high molecular weight, thermally stable, blue-light-emitting random copolymers of 9,9-di-n-hexylfluorene by nickel(0)-mediated polymerization. The copolymers are readily soluble and easily processable from organic solvents. Both the polymer and electronic properties may be tuned by selection of comonomer structure. The electronic properties also vary with composition and film morphology. A blue-light-emitting device has been prepared using ionic salts for electrochemical doping.

Thermally Stable Blue-Light-Emitting Copolymers of Poly(alkylfluorene)

We demonstrate a light-emitting organic field-effect transistor (OFET) with pronounced ambipolar current characteristics. The ambipolar transport layer is a coevaporated thin film of α-quinquethiophene (α-5T) as hole-transport material and N,N′-ditridecylperylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic diimide (P13) as electron-transport material. The light intensity is controlled by both the drain–source voltage VDS and the gate voltage VG. Moreover, the latter can be used to adjust the charge-carrier balance. The device structure serves as a model system for ambipolar light-emitting OFETs and demonstrates the general concept of adjusting electron and hole mobilities by coevaporation of two different organic semiconductors.

/pdf/ambipolar-light-emitting-organic-field-effect-transistor-36f3fnqirj.pdf

Siegfried Karg

Papers

Role of Oxygen Vacancies in Cr‐Doped SrTiO3 for Resistance‐Change Memory

Polymeric anodes for improved polymer light-emitting diode performance

Realization of a silicon nanowire vertical surround-gate field-effect transistor.

Thermally Stable Blue-Light-Emitting Copolymers of Poly(alkylfluorene)

Ambipolar light-emitting organic field-effect transistor