The European Physical Journal Applied Physics

Table of Contents - November 2005 - Volume 32, Issue 02  

Physics of Organic Materials and Devices

Study of trap levels in Alq3 layers by photodipolar absorption

A. Molitona1, W. Rammala1 and B. Lucasa1

UMOP, CNRS – FRE 2701, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, 87060 Limoges Cedex, France

Abstract

In this paper we develop arguments about the part of traps involved in the electronic conductivity of the 8-tris-hydroxyquinoline aluminium (Alq3) studied in the conventional electronic structure ITO/Alq3/Al. After the presentation of general models and some topical discussions about the expression of the mobility in organic materials, we present results obtained by photodipolar absorption, which is a thermo-photo-dielectric effect, and by impedance spectroscopy measurements. This last method permits to define the equivalent circuit that can be designed as a single capacitor C p and parallel resistor R p network with a series resistance $R_{s} \approx $ 50 $\rm \Omega $ located on the anode side; the log – log plot R p as a function of the dc bias voltage gives a linear law that can be seen in a first time as a consequence of a Trapped Charge Limited current (TCL); this TCL law could be improved with the introduction of a field dependent mobility. Indeed, the photodipolar absorption leads to more convincing arguments because this method acts as a probe to highlight the traps: in particular, we show that the optical pumping of electrons on trap levels gives a clear increase in the dielectric absorption generated by the reorientation of dipoles associated with trapped charges; the trap depth is located around E t = 0.19 eV, which is a value in good agreement with theoretical calculations or thermoluminescence measurements.

(Received May 19 2005)

(Revised June 6 2005)

(Accepted June 24 2005)

(Online publication October 26 2005)

PACS:

  • 73.61.Ph – Polymers; organic compounds;
  • 73.61.-r – Electrical properties of specific thin films;
  • 73.50.-h – Electronic transport phenomena in thin films;
  • 78.90.+t – Other topics in optical properties, condensed matter spectroscopy and other interactions of particles and radiation with condensed matter (restricted to new topics in section 78)

amoliton@unilim.fr