Organic Conductors and Photovoltaics: OFET and OPV Materials

Organic field effect transistors (OFETs) are the basic building blocks for flexible integrated circuits and displays. A schematic OFET is shown in Firgure 1. During the operation of the transistor, a gate electrode is used to control the current flow between the drain and source electrodes. Typically, a higher applied gate voltage leads to higher current flow between drain and source electrodes. To make OFETs, materials rnaging from conductors (for electrodes), semiconductors (for active channel materials), to insulators (for gate dielectric layers) are needed. A wide range of organic molecules available in this section of the catalog are reserached as potential high-performance p- and n-type organic semiconductors. Pleae refer to Substrates and Electrodes section for a selection of inorganic (Au, ITO, LiF) materials and substrates commonly used in OFET and OPV research.

Organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs) are researched for their potential to become a low-cost alternative to solid-state solar cells. Fabrication of bulk heterojunction OPVs (Figure 2) requires blending of soluble n- and p-type semiconductors, such as PCBM and P3HT. Layered (planar heterojunction) OPVs can be made combining vacuum evaporation of poorly soluble conductors (e.g. buckminsterfullerene C₆₀) and solution deposition of polymer layers. Hybrid solar cells (dye-sensitized solar cells) consist of inorganic semiconductor nanoparticles and sensitizing dyes. There is considerable overlap between materials used to construct OFETs and OPVs. The OPV Materials section features organic electronics products proved to be especially useful in OPVs. For hole transport layer materials (HT layer in Figure 2), please refer to the Hole Injection Materials section of the catalog