Overcoming Film Quality Issues for Conjugated Polymers Doped with F4TCNQ by Solution Sequential Processing: Hall Effect, Structural, and Optical Measurements

J Phys Chem Lett. 2015 Dec 3;6(23):4786-93. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b02332. Epub 2015 Nov 19.

Abstract

We demonstrate that solution-sequential processing (SqP) can yield heavily doped pristine-quality films when used to infiltrate the molecular dopant 2,3,5,6-tetrafluoro-7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (F4TCNQ) into pure poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) polymer layers. Profilometry measurements show that the SqP method produces doped films with essentially the same surface roughness as pristine films, and 2-D grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS) confirms that SqP preserves both the size and orientation of the pristine polymer's crystallites. Unlike traditional blend-cast F4TCNQ/P3HT doped films, our sequentially processed layers have tunable and reproducible conductivities reaching as high as 5.5 S/cm even when measured over macroscopic (>1 cm) distances. The high conductivity and superb film quality allow for meaningful Hall effect measurements, which reveal p-type conduction and carrier concentrations tunable from 10(16) to 10(20) cm(-3) and hole mobilities ranging from ∼0.003 to 0.02 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) at room temperature over the doping levels examined.

Keywords: 2D grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering; Hall effect measurements; profilometry measurements; solution-sequential processing.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.