Breaking the mobility-stability dichotomy in organic semiconductors through adaptive surface doping

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Organic Electronics
• Semiconductor Physics

Background:

• Organic semiconductors (OSCs) face a critical trade-off between charge carrier mobility and operational stability.
• Existing methods struggle to simultaneously improve both performance metrics in OSC devices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and evaluate adaptive surface doping (ASD) as a novel strategy to overcome the mobility-stability dichotomy in OSCs.
• To demonstrate ASD's capability in enhancing both charge transport and device longevity.

Main Methods:

• Development of an adaptive surface doping (ASD) technique for organic semiconductors.
• Analysis of trap state passivation and energy level modification.
• Characterization of charge carrier mobility and device operational lifetime.

Main Results:

• ASD effectively passivates trap states, lowering their energy level from 84 meV to 14 meV above the valence band edge.
• A transition from hopping to band-like transport mechanisms was observed.
• Carrier mobility increased by over 60% to 30.7 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹.
• Extrapolated operational lifetime of treated devices exceeded 57.5 years.

Conclusions:

• Adaptive surface doping (ASD) successfully resolves the intrinsic mobility-stability trade-off in organic semiconductors.
• ASD offers a powerful approach for simultaneously enhancing the performance and stability of OSC devices.
• This strategy paves the way for advanced flexible electronic applications.