An investigation into the electronic transport properties of organic semiconductors and thin film devices

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Organic thin film semiconductors offer a competitive alternative for the making of electronic devices and circuits. Our key reasons for studying these materials arise from low cost, that some deposition processes are amenable to large area fabrication, and the variability in the physical properties of the deposited films. Currently, light-emitting diode displays using organic thin films are being manufactured and numerous prototype organic thin film transistor circuits have been reported. Unlike the case of single crystal semiconductors, our understanding of the organic thin film semiconductors is limited. Many important issues linked to energy band structures, impurity states, charge excitation and recombination, etc. remain to be resolved.  As far as the electronic circuits and devices are concerned, the important parameter affecting performance has been the charge mobility. This parameter generally controls the speed of operation of the device, the gain when the device operates in an amplifier circuit and the charge dynamic during switching. Our proposed research addresses a number of related issues and attempts to examine theoretically (in conjunction with experiments) how charge mobility can increase beyond its current achievable value. Our earlier work suggests that this is very possible. The other significance of this work is to train technologists and engineers in this upcoming field to cope with foreseeable demands particularly in areas such as flexible electronics and sensory circuits. These are areas where the industries in Canada are in a good position to excel given the type of prevailing demands in health care and environmental engineering.