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Nonlinear transport in semiconducting polymers at high carrier densities

Nature Materials volume 8, pages 572–575 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Conducting and semiconducting polymers are important materials in the development of printed, flexible, large-area electronics such as flat-panel displays and photovoltaic cells. There has been rapid progress in developing conjugated polymers with high transport mobility required for high-performance field-effect transistors (FETs), beginning1 with mobilities around 10−4 cm2 V−1 s−1 to a recent report2 of 1 cm2 V−1 s−1 for poly(2,5-bis(3-tetradecylthiophen-2-yl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene) (PBTTT). Here, the electrical properties of PBTTT are studied at high charge densities both as the semiconductor layer in FETs and in electrochemically doped films to determine the transport mechanism. We show that data obtained using a wide range of parameters (temperature, gate-induced carrier density, source–drain voltage and doping level) scale onto the universal curve predicted for transport in the Luttinger liquid description of the one-dimensional ‘metal’.

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Figure 1: Typical temperature dependence of conductivity for PBTTT FETs.
Figure 2: FET data scale onto a ‘universal’ curve.
Figure 3: Evidence of Luttinger liquid transport in doped PBTTT films.
Figure 4: Correlation of α to charge density.

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Acknowledgements

Research supported by the National Science Foundation under NSF- DMR 0602280. We thank E. L. Hu, E. J. Kramer and R. Seshadri for useful discussions, M. Chabinyc for information on the properties of PBTTT and L. Balents for important comments on the physics of the Luttinger liquid. J.D.Y. thanks B. Y. Hsu, S. R. Cowan and J. S. Moon for technical assistance and useful discussions. A portion of this work was carried out at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which is supported by NSF Cooperative Agreement No. DMR-0084173, by the State of Florida, and by the DOE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Polymers and Organic Solids, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA

    Jonathan D. Yuen, Reghu Menon, Nelson E. Coates, Ebinazar B. Namdas, Shinuk Cho, Daniel Moses & Alan J. Heeger

  2. Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India

    Reghu Menon

  3. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32310, USA

    Scott T. Hannahs

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  1. Jonathan D. Yuen
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Contributions

A.J.H., D.M., J.D.Y. and R.M. developed the concept and designed experiments. J.D.Y. and R.M. set up and carried out the experiments in UCSB with J.D.Y. fabricating the samples. D.M., J.D.Y. and S.T.H. carried out the experiments in NHMFL with E.B.N., J.D.Y. and S.C. fabricating the samples. J.D.Y. and N.E.C. analysed the data. Interpretation of the data was developed by A.J.H., D.M., J.D.Y. and R.M. The paper was written by both A.J.H. and J.D.Y.

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Correspondence to Alan J. Heeger.

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Yuen, J., Menon, R., Coates, N. et al. Nonlinear transport in semiconducting polymers at high carrier densities. Nature Mater 8, 572–575 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2470

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