Space-charge limited

The results of several studies were interpreted by the Poole-Erenkel mechanism of field-assisted release of electrons from traps in the bulk of the oxide. In other studies, the Schottky mechanism of electron flow controlled by a thermionic emission over a field-lowered barrier at the counter electrode oxide interface was used to explain the conduction process. Some results suggested a space charge-limited conduction mechanism operates. The general lack of agreement between the results of various studies has been summari2ed (57). 

The electrical current of a coplanar interdigilal gold/LPPP/gold device is space charge limited due to p-type charge earner traps localized in the bandgap [28]. This can be inferred from the field dependence of the dark current at room temperature. The thermally stimulated current spectrum exhibits two peaks, corresponding to two distinct trap levels ,1 and ,", which can be calculated from the rise in current, /, below the peak temperature ... 

Two main methods have been used to measure the charge carrier mobility in electroluminescent polymers time of flight (TOF) carrier transit time measurements and analysis of the current-voltage (1-V) characteristics of single carrier devices in the space charge-limited current (SCLC) regime. A summary of the results for the hole mobility of PPV and PPV-related polymers is given in Table 11-1 [24, 27-32]. For... 

The hole current in this LED is space charge limited and the electron current is contact limited. There are many more holes than electrons in the device and all of the injected electrons recombine in the device. The measured external quantum efficiency of the device is about 0.5% al a current density of 0.1 A/cm. The recombination current calculated from the device model is in reasonable agreement with the observed quantum efficiency. The quantum efficiency of this device is limited by the asymmetric charge injection. Most of the injected holes traverse the structure without recombining because there are few electrons available to form excilons. 

One result of the field-dependent mobility is that the space charge-limited current (SCLC, the maximum current that can How in the bulk of the sample) does no longer follow a simple V2H scaling [132] on the voltage Land sample thickness L. Muigatroyd [133] was able to show that, for a mobility as in Eq. (13.4), the monopolar SCLC current could be well approximated by ... 

For typical polymer LED device parameters, currenl is space charge limited if the energy barrier to injection is less than about 0.3-0.4 eV and contact limited if it is laiger than that. Injection currents have a component due to thermionic emission and a component due to tunneling. Both thermionic emission and tunneling... 

A. Van der Ziel, Space-Charge-Limited Solid-State Diodes... 

A.J. Campbell, D.D.C. Bradley, H. Antoniadis, M. Inbasekaran, W.W. Wu, and A.P. Woo, Transient and steady-state space-charge-limited currents in polyfluorene copolymer diode structures with ohmic hole injection contacts, Appl. Phys. Lett., 76 1734-1736, 2000. 

Important electrical informations about OLEDs, such as charge transport, charge injection, carrier mobility, etc., can be obtained from bias-dependent impedance spectroscopy, which in turn provides insight into the operating mechanisms of the OLED [14,15,73,75 78]. Campbell et al. reported electrical measurements of a PLED with a 50-nm-thick emissive layer [75], Marai et al. studied electrical measurement of capacitance-voltage and impedance frequency of ITO/l,4-Mv-(9-anthrylvinyl)-benzene/Al OLED under different bias voltage conditions [76], They found that the current is space-charge limited with traps and the conductivity exhibits power-law frequency dependence. 

N. Holonyak, Jr. and M. H. Lee, Photopumped III-V Semiconductor Lasers H. Kressel and J. K Butler, Heterojunction Laser Diodes A Van der Ziel, Space-Charge-Limited Solid-State Diodes P. J. Price, Monte Carlo Calculation of Electron Transport in Solids... 

Fig. 8 Temperature dependence of the zero field hole mobility in the low carrier density limit in a polyfluorene copolymer. The data are inferred from space-charge-limited current experiments and analyzed in terms of the extended Gaussian disorder model (see Sect. 4.1). From [90] with permission. Copyright (2008) by the American Institute of Physics...

In fact, in their recent work, Mensfoort et al. [90] conclude that in polyfluorene copolymers hole transport is entirely dominated by disorder. This is supported by a strictly linear In p cx dependence covering a dynamic range of 15 decades with a temperature range from 150 to 315 K (Fig. 8). Based upon stationary space-charge-limited current measurement, where the charge carriers are in quasi equilibrium so that dispersion effects are absent, the authors determine a width a of the DOS for holes as large as 130 meV with negligible polaron contribution. 

The work of Mensfoort et al. is a striking test of the importance of charge carrier density effects in space-charge-limited transport studies. For a given applied voltage the space charge concentration is inversely proportional to the device thickness. This explains why in Fig. 9 the deviation from the In cx... 

Fig. 13 Experimental (symbols) and theoretical (lines) data for the current-density as a function of applied voltage for a polymer film of a derivative of PPV under the condition of space-charge-limited current flow. Full curves are the solution of a transport equation that includes DOS filling (see text), dashed lines show the prediction of Child s law for space-charge-limited current flow assuming a constant charge carrier mobility. From [96] with permission. Copyright (2005) by the American Institute of Physics...

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