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

有机薄膜半导体为电子设备和电路的制造提供了一种具有竞争力的替代方案。我们研究这些材料的主要原因是成本低，一些沉积过程可以大面积制造，以及沉积薄膜的物理性质的变异性。目前，使用有机薄膜的发光二极管显示器正在制造中，并报道了许多有机薄膜晶体管电路的原型。与单晶半导体不同，我们对有机薄膜半导体的理解是有限的。与能带结构、杂质状态、电荷激发和复合等有关的许多重要问题仍有待解决。然而，就电子电路和器件而言，影响性能的重要参数是电荷迁移率。该参数通常控制器件的运行速度、器件在放大电路中运行时的增益以及开关过程中的电荷动态。我们建议的研究解决了一些相关的问题，并试图从理论上(结合实验)检查电荷迁移率如何增加到超过其当前可实现的值。我们早期的工作表明，这是非常有可能的。这项工作的另一个意义是培训这一即将到来的领域的技术人员和工程师，以应对可预见的需求，特别是在柔性电子和传感电路等领域。鉴于医疗保健和环境工程领域的普遍需求，加拿大的行业在这些领域处于有利地位，能够出类拔萃。

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.