Engineering efficient contacts for organic electronic devices

非技术性：有机半导体是一种可以实现新技术的新型材料。它们的设备应用可能会影响能源、交通、通信和医药等行业。要发生这样一场彻底的革命，需要克服一些性能限制。大量具有高载流子迁移率的有机半导体已经被制造出来，这是一种衡量电子在材料中移动速度的指标。然而，有机半导体中的电荷注入仍然是高性能器件发展的瓶颈。该项目将通过实验和建模相结合的综合方法来应对这一挑战。该项目的目标是开发描述有机半导体中电荷注入的方法，并减少接触的影响。这些洞察力随后可以被用来创造创新的设备设计。该项目将极大地推动有机半导体器件领域的发展，可能导致目前无法实现的应用。这个项目将使学生接触到最先进的半导体加工和表征，并为他们在现代制造业中的就业做好准备。PI是一位敬业的导师，将在实验室环境中为学生提供研究机会，并将研究融入课堂。她还将接触当地的高中、社区学院、大学和儿童博物馆。她将继续努力，通过参加在会议和校园组织的特别活动，在当地学校开展活动，并积极参加正式和非正式的指导，来吸引和留住科学领域中代表性不足的少数族裔学生。技术：有机半导体提供了一个机会，在非传统领域，如服装、电子纸、灵活和可卷曲的应用，或生物集成应用，增强硅电子。随着最近高迁移率化合物的发展，该领域面临着巨大的挑战：降低有源电子层的电阻的一个直接结果是，现在接触电阻的贡献变得很大。迫切需要在设备设计方面进行创新，以减少触点对设备性能的影响。该项目的目标是通过最小化或消除接触效应来设计更好的器件，并开发一种在存在严重接触效应的情况下准确确定载流子迁移率的方法。设计了一系列实验和模拟任务，以便更好地了解有机半导体中的电荷注入和传输，严格的器件参数提取，并将接触电阻大幅降低到即使是非常高迁移率的材料也可以获得本征迁移率的水平。这项拟议的研究旨在激发新技术，推动有机半导体成为目前无法获得的无处不在的电子产品。该项目将为在多样化和多学科的环境中教育学生并使他们接触最先进的半导体加工和表征技术提供一个极好的场所。PI是一位敬业的老师和导师，除了她的学生外，她还将积极参与项目的每个阶段。她将寻找不同的机会，为她的学生提供参观国家实验室和其他大学实验室所需的资金。她的团队将接触当地的高中和社区大学，并接待来访的学生。PI将通过她组织的会议、大学和院系活动，有意识地努力提高对STEM多样性和包容性的认识，并有效地领导她自己的研究小组嵌入这些价值观。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Nontechnical:Organic semiconductors are a novel class of materials that can enable new technologies. Their device applications could impact industries such as energy, transportation, communications and medicine. For such a sweeping revolution to occur, there are performance limits to be overcome. A large number of organic semiconductors with high carrier mobility, a measure of how quickly electrons move through a material, have been made. However, charge injection into organic semiconductors remains a bottleneck to the development of high performance devices. The project will confront this challenge through an integrated approach combining experiment and modelling. The goal of this project is to develop methods to describe charge injection into organic semiconductors and reduce the impact of contacts. These insights can then be used to create innovative device designs. This project will significantly advance the field of organic semiconductor devices, possibly leading to applications that are currently impossible. This project will expose students to state-of the-art semiconductor processing and characterization and prepare them for employment in modern manufacturing. The PI is a dedicated mentor and will offer research opportunities to students in the laboratory setting and integrate research into the classroom. She will also reach out to local high-schools, community colleges, universities, and children's museums. She will continue her efforts to attract and retain under-represented minority students in science by participating in special events organized at conferences and on campus, running campaigns in local schools, and actively participating in formal and informal mentoring.Technical:Organic semiconductors provide an opportunity to augment silicon electronics in non-traditional areas such as clothing, electronic paper, flexible and rollable applications, or bio-integrated applications. With the recent development of very high mobility compounds, the field faces a great challenge: a direct consequence of lowering the resistance of the active electronic layer is that now the contribution of the contact resistance becomes significant. Innovation in device design for reducing the impact of contacts on device performance is urgently needed. The goals of this project are to engineer better devices through minimizing or eliminating the contact effects and to develop a methodology for accurate determination the charge carrier mobility in the presence of severe contact effects. A set of experiments and modelling tasks were designed to allow for a better understanding of charge injection and transport in organic semiconductors, a rigorous device parameter extraction and a drastic reduction in the contact resistance to a level where intrinsic mobility is accessible even for the very high mobility materials. The proposed research is designed to spark new technologies and propel organic semiconductors to ubiquitous electronics that are currently inaccessible. The project will provide an excellent venue for educating students in a diverse and multidisciplinary environment and exposing them to state-of the-art semiconductor processing and characterization techniques. The PI is a dedicated teacher and mentor, and she will actively be involved in each stage of the project besides her students. She will seek different opportunities to provide her students funding necessary to visit national labs and other university labs. Her group will reach out to local high-schools and community colleges, and host visiting students. The PI will dedicate a conscious effort to raising awareness for diversity and inclusion in STEM, through the conferences she is organizing, university and department events, and effectively leading her own research group embedded in these values.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.