Comparative Study of Conduction Mechanisms in Disodium Phthalocyanine-Based Organic Diodes for Flexible Electronics

In the current work, flexible diodes with flat heterojunction and dispersed heterojunction architecture were manufactured with to study the behavior of thin films of disodium phthalocyanine (Na₂Pc). The thin film devices, using the electronic acceptor tetracyano-π-quinodimethane (TCNQ), were fabricated by high-vacuum thermal evaporation with annealing post-treatment in order to optimize their behavior. Theoretical calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) with dispersion force analysis were carried out in order to simulate molecular interactions and to establish the nature of the weak interactions between the Na₂Pc and TCNQ fragments. In the optimized structure of the coupled Na₂Pc-TCNQ, the electronic relationship between phthalocyanine and TCNQ was observed to be through hydrogen bonds with bond lengths of 2.94 and 3.13 Å. Dispersed heterojunction device current density values were considerably larger than those of the flat heterojunction device. Barrier heights of 1.024 and 0.909 eV and charge mobilities of 10^-10 and 10^-9 m²/Vs for the flat heterojunction device and the dispersed heterojunction device, respectively, were observed. A small effect was observed on the electrical properties by thermal annealing on the flat heterojunction device. The threshold voltage decreased from 1.203 to 1.147 V and φ_b decreased by 0.001 eV.