CAREER: Charge Injection in Polymers and Small Organic Molecules

这个CAREER项目旨在促进对有机界面的基本理解，并提供一个独特的环境，为学生在快速发展的有机光电子领域的职业生涯做好准备。在诸如发光二极管、薄膜晶体管、光电二极管和光折射器件的器件中，限制提高性能和稳定性的能力的主要问题是缺乏对有机材料和金属电极之间的界面的基本理解。实现跨这些接口的载流子传输的基本理解，识别和理解在这些接口的退化的主要机制，然后利用这种理解，以提高电气性能是在这个项目中正在解决的科学/工程问题。本文将进行一系列的实验，试图阐明金属/有机界面电荷注入的机理，并由此改善金属/有机接触的性能和稳定性。该方法是首先建立依赖于注入电场，温度和材料参数，如层厚度，介电常数，能量势垒和陷阱的存在下，在模型金属/有机界面。这些界面将通过在适当选择的金属上沉积具有良好特征的电荷传输特性的有机材料来形成。第二，通过在界面处引入适当的薄导电层来诱导有机物的掺杂，并研究其对注入的影响。各种实验技术将被用来探测这些接口和接触性能的性质。最后，将通过加速老化测试研究原始界面和掺杂界面的稳定性，以推断主要降解模式并确定其对注入的影响。该研究项目将与教育和外展计划密切结合，其中包括传统课程和广泛的指导。新的课程将开发，为本科生和研究生提供有机光电子学的坚实背景。除了研究生研究助理，本科生将密切参与研究计划-为他们提供一个独特的机会，以补充他们的理论培训与实践研究活动。一个专注于有机光电电子学的更大社区将由校园和其他大学的不同团体组成，这将使学生有机会体验真正的多学科环境。此外，将制定一项针对K-12、女性/少数民族大学和工业的扩展推广计划，以将这些好处扩大到广大社区。拟议的计划将在康奈尔大学建立一个卓越的研究和教育中心，这将有利于有机光电领域和整个社会。广泛的教育和推广计划将建立一个独特的环境，预计将吸引学生到科学和培养研究人员，将塑造有机光电子学的未来。该项目涉及具有高度技术相关性的材料科学专题领域的基础研究问题。该项目的范围将使学生面临材料合成，加工和表征方面的挑战。该项目的一个重要特点是高度重视教育，并将研究与教育相结合。***

This CAREER project aims to advance fundamental understanding of organic interfaces, and to provide a unique environment to prepare students for careers in the rapidly growing area of or-ganic optoelectronics. In devices such as light emitting diodes, thin film transistors, photodiodes and photorefractives, a primary problem limiting the ability to improve performance and stability is lack of a fundamental understanding of the interface between organic materials and metal electrodes. Achieving a fundamental understanding of carrier transport across these interfaces, identifying and understanding the primary mechanisms of degradation at these interfaces, and then utilizing this understanding to improve the electrical properties are the scientific/engineering issues being addressed in this project. A series of experiments seeking to elucidate the mecha-nism of charge injection at metal/organic interfaces and leading to improvement of the perform-ance and stability of metal/organic contacts will be conducted. The approach is to first establish the dependence of injection on electric field, temperature and materials parameters such as layer thickness, dielectric constant, energy barrier and the presence of traps, at model metal/organic interfaces. These interfaces will be formed by depositing organic materials with well-characterized charge transport properties on properly chosen metals. Second, doping of the or-ganic will be induced by the introduction of appropriate thin conducting layers at the interface and its influence on injection investigated. A variety of experimental techniques will be used to probe the nature of these interfaces and contact properties. Finally, the stability of both pristine and doped interfaces will be studied with accelerated aging tests in order to deduce primary modes of degradation and determine their influence on injection.The research project will be closely integrated with an education and outreach program incorpo-rating both conventional courses and extensive mentoring. New courses will be developed to provide undergraduate and graduate students with a solid background in organic optoelectronics. In addition to graduate research assistants, undergraduate students will be intimately involved in the research program - providing them with a unique opportunity to complement their theoretical training with hands-on research activities. A greater community focusing on organic optoelec-tronics will be assembled from diverse groups across the campus and other universities, which will give students the opportunity to experience a truly multidisciplinary environment. Also, an extended outreach program aimed at K-12, female/minority colleges, and industry, will be devel-oped to extend these benefits to the broad community. The proposed program will create a center of excellence in research and education at Cornell that will benefit the field of organic optoelec-tronics and society at large. The broad education and outreach plan will establish a unique envi-ronment expected to attract students to sciences and nurture the researchers that will shape the future of organic optoelectronics.%%% The project addresses fundamental research issues in a topical area of materials science having high technological relevance. The scope of the project will expose students to challenges in materials synthesis, processing, and characterization. An important feature of the project is the strong emphasis on education, and the integration of research and education. ***