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Organic Electronics pp 259–300Cite as

Steady-State Photoconduction in Amorphous Organic Solids

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Part of the book series: Advances in Polymer Science ((POLYMER,volume 223))

Abstract

By applying various experimental techniques, e.g., transient absorption in a strong electric field and delayed field collection of charge carriers, it has been proven that in neat conjugated polymers singlet excitations can dissociate into pairs of free charge carriers in a strong electric field. Random walk theory has been developed to treat this process analytically. At variance of conventional 3D Onsager theory it is assumed that an exciton with finite lifetime can first transfer endothermically an electron to an adjacent site, thereby generating a charge transfer state whose energy is above the energy of that of the initial exciton. In a second step the latter can fully dissociate in accordance with Onsager’s concept Brownian motion. The results indicate that, depending on the energy required for the first jump, the first jump contributes significantly to the field dependence of the dissociation yield. Disorder weakens the temperature dependence of the yield dramatically and precludes extracting information on the exciton binding energy from it. The chapter will also address the problem of photogeneration in donor–acceptor blends used in organic photovoltaic cells and emphasize the crucial role of geminate recombination of the electron–hole pair at the internal interface.

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Abbreviations

3D:

Three dimensional

CT:

Charge transfer

DOS:

Density of states

\(e - h\) pair:

Electron–hole pair

FET:

Field effect transistor

HOMO:

Highest occupied molecular orbital

LPPP:

Laddertype poly-phenylene

LUMO:

Lowest unoccupied molecular orbital

(MDMO-PPV):PCBM:

Poly(2-methoxy, 5-(3′, 7′ dimethyl-octyloxy))- p-phenylene vinylene

OC1C10-PPV:

Poly(2-methoxy-5-(3′, 7′-dimethyloctyloxy)- phenylene vinylene

OLED:

Organic light emitting diode

PCBM:

(6,6)-Phenyl C61 butyric acid methyl ester

PPV:

Poly-phenylenevinylene

PV:

Photovoltaic cell

SY:

Superyellow

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Acknowledgements

HB acknowledges valuable discussions with Dirk Hertel and financial support by the Fond der Chemischen Industrie.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Philipps University, Hans-Meerwein-Street, 35032, Marburg, Germany

    H. Bässler

  2. Laboratory for Molecular Dynamics and Spectroscopy, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200F, 3001, Heverlee-Leuven, Belgium

    E. V. Emelianova

Authors
  1. H. Bässler
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  2. E. V. Emelianova
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to E. V. Emelianova .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. Mikroelektronik, TU Wien, Gußhausstraße 27-29, Wien, 1040, Austria

    Tibor Grasser

  2. Inst. Mikroelektronik, TU Wien, Gußhausstraße 27-29, Wien, 1040, Austria

    Gregor Meller

  3. Inst. Mikroelektronik, TU Wien, Gußhausstraße 27-29, Wien, 1040, Austria

    Ling Li

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Bässler, H., Emelianova, E.V. (2009). Steady-State Photoconduction in Amorphous Organic Solids. In: Grasser, T., Meller, G., Li, L. (eds) Organic Electronics. Advances in Polymer Science, vol 223. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/12_2009_11

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