Doubling the efficiency of organic electronics

Researchers have discovered a simple new tweak that could double the efficiency of organic electronics, with the potential to benefit technologies including OLED displays, plastic-based solar cells and bioelectronics.

The majority of our everyday electronics are based on inorganic semiconductors, such as silicon. Crucial to their function is a process called doping, which involves weaving impurities into the semiconductor to enhance its electrical conductivity. It is this that allows various components in solar cells and LED screens to work.

For organic — that is, carbon-based — semiconductors, this doping process is similarly of extreme importance. Since the discovery of electrically conducting plastics and polymers, a field in which a Nobel Prize was awarded in 2000, research and development of organic electronics has accelerated quickly, with OLED displays now used in the latest generation of smartphones. But other applications have not yet been fully realised, due in part to the fact that organic semiconductors have so far not been efficient enough.

Doping in organic semiconductors operates through what is known as a redox reaction. This means that a dopant molecule receives an electron from the semiconductor, increasing the electrical conductivity of the semiconductor. The more dopant molecules that the semiconductor can react with, the higher the conductivity — at least up to a certain limit, after which the conductivity decreases.

Currently, the efficiency limit of doped organic semiconductors has been determined by the fact that the dopant molecules have only been able to exchange one electron each. Now, a research team led by Chalmers University of Technology has demonstrated that it is possible to move two electrons to every dopant molecule, with the results published in the journal Nature Materials.

“Through this ‘double doping’ process, the semiconductor can therefore become twice as effective,” said David Kiefer, a PhD student at Chalmers and first author of the article.

According to research leader Professor Christian Müller, this innovation is not built on some great technical achievement. Instead, it is simply a case of seeing what others have not seen.

“The whole research field has been totally focused on studying materials which only allow one redox reaction per molecule,” said Prof Müller. “We chose to look at a different type of polymer, with lower ionisation energy. We saw that this material allowed the transfer of two electrons to the dopant molecule. It is actually very simple.”

The discovery could allow further improvements to technologies which today are not competitive enough to make it to market. One problem is that polymers simply do not conduct current well enough, and so making the doping techniques more effective has long been a focus for achieving better polymer-based electronics. Now, this doubling of the conductivity of polymers, while using only the same amount of dopant material, over the same surface area as before, could represent the tipping point needed to allow several emerging technologies to be commercialised.

“With OLED displays, the development has come far enough that they are already on the market,” Prof Müller said. “But for other technologies to succeed and make it to market, something extra is needed. With organic solar cells, for example, or electronic circuits built of organic material, we need the ability to dope certain components to the same extent as silicon-based electronics. Our approach is a step in the right direction.”

The discovery could help thousands of researchers to achieve advances in flexible electronics, bioelectronics and thermoelectricity. Prof Müller’s group at Chalmers is now researching several different applied areas, including polymer technology, electrically conducting textiles and organic solar cells.

Image caption: Double doping could improve the light-harvesting efficiency of flexible organic solar cells (left), the switching speed of electronic paper (centre) and the power density of piezoelectric textiles (right). The solar cell was supplied by Epishine. Image credit: Johan Bodell/Chalmers University of Technology.

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