IRTG Workshop 2009 in Mainz
Self Organized Materials for Optoelectronics
Conjugated organic materials form the basis of emerging new core technologies like optical displays, field effect transistors and photovoltaic cells. Further progress in this area is mostly limited by two reasons; first, the charge carrier mobility in organic semiconducting materials is considerably lower than in inorganic semiconductors. This is a consequence of the – mostly - amorphous local packing and the presence of many grain boundaries. Liquid crystalline order can help to increase the local order without the creation of too many grain boundaries. A second major issue concerns the control of the interface and the phase separated superstructure between p- and n-type conducting materials in photovoltaic cells in order to optimise charge separation and the effective migration of charges to the connecting electrodes. Therefore, to make any significant progress in this area it is necessary to include self-organized structures for an increase of the local order and a control of the superstructure.