Title
Tuning the dielectric properties of organic semiconductors via salt doping
Date Issued
12 December 2013
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
research article
Author(s)
Liu X.
Jeong K.
Williams B.
Vakhshouri K.
Guo C.
Han K.
Wang Q.
Asbury J.
Pennsylvania State University
Publisher(s)
American Chemical Society
Abstract
Enhancing the dielectric permittivity of organic semiconductors may open new opportunities to control charge generation and recombination dynamics in organic solar cells. The potential to tune the dielectric permittivity of organic semiconductors by doping them with redox inactive salts was explored using a combination of organic synthesis, electrical characterization, and time-resolved infrared spectroscopy. The addition of the salt, LiTFSI (lithium bis(trifluoro-methyl-sulfonyl)imide), to a conjugated polymer specifically designed to incorporate ions into its bulk phase increased the density of holes and enhanced the static dielectric permittivity of the polymer blend by more than an order of magnitude. The frequency and phase dependence of the real dielectric function demonstrates that the increase in dielectric permittivity resulted from dipolar motion of bound ion pairs or clusters of ions. Interestingly, the increases in the hole density and dielectric permittivity were associated with enhancement of the hole mobility by 2 orders of magnitude relative to the undoped polymer. The charge recombination lifetime also increased by an order of magnitude in the blend with a fullerene electron acceptor when ions were added to the polymer. The findings indicate that ion doping enables organic semiconductors with large increases in low frequency dielectric permittivity and that these changes result in improved charge transport and suppressed charge recombination on the microsecond time scale. © 2013 American Chemical Society.
Start page
15866
End page
15874
Volume
117
Issue
49
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Química física
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84890507133
Source
Journal of Physical Chemistry B
ISSN of the container
15205207
Sponsor(s)
National Science Foundation 0846241 NSF
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus