New Materials for the Formation of Polymer Junction Diodes
UCLA Researchers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering have developed polymer p-i-n junction diodes. Compared to conventional semiconductor devices, polymer semiconductor devices are particularly attractive for applications in which flexibility, light weight, large-area thin film, low-cost, and/or environmentally safe characteristics are important. However, despite these potential advantages, devices made from neutral conjugated polymers have found limited applications due to their low carrier mobility and charge injection barrier at the polymer/electrode interfaces. Polymer devices that could overcome these limitations and offer the advantages listed above would be of great benefit. The p-i-n junction diodes disclosed here do exactly that: they overcome the noted limitations while exhibiting many of the benefits associated with polymer devices.
