Abstract
The performance of power conversion devices is impacted by the energy level alignment at the interface between the conjugated polymer and conductive substrate. While band bending has been known to vary between conjugated polymers, we show that the degree of band bending within the same polymer can be just as significant with morphology change. Specifically, a significant band bending effect, studied via Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM), was exhibited by poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) films fabricated using matrix assisted pulsed laser evaporation (MAPLE) in contrast to the conventional spin-cast P3HT films. This finding is associated with a broadening of the density of states (DOS) in the MAPLE-deposited P3HT films, originating from the more disordered structure of the film. These findings, to the best of our knowledge, illustrate for the first time a strong connection between morphology, energy level alignment, and bulk transport in conjugated polymer films.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 7446-7451 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Journal of Materials Chemistry C |
Volume | 5 |
Issue number | 30 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Royal Society of Chemistry 2017.
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/JA-5A00-69125
Keywords
- bulk transport
- conjugated polymer films
- energy level alignment
- morphology