Interface Engineering for Organic Electronics

TLDR

Organic electronics have advanced rapidly over the past two decades, offering low cost, lightweight, flexible devices, but their performance and lifetime depend critically on active materials and interfacial properties. This feature article aims to highlight strategies for interface engineering in organic electronic devices. The highlighted strategies include surfactant‑modified cathodes, hole‑transporting buffer layers, and self‑assembled monolayer‑modified anodes. Interface control enables high‑efficiency OLEDs, improves efficiency and stability of conventional and inverted polymer solar cells, and allows high‑performance OFETs through tailored electrode‑semiconductor and dielectric interfaces.

Abstract

Abstract The field of organic electronics has been developed vastly in the past two decades due to its promise for low cost, lightweight, mechanical flexibility, versatility of chemical design and synthesis, and ease of processing. The performance and lifetime of these devices, such as organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs), photovoltaics (OPVs), and field‐effect transistors (OFETs), are critically dependent on the properties of both active materials and their interfaces. Interfacial properties can be controlled ranging from simple wettability or adhesion between different materials to direct modifications of the electronic structure of the materials. In this Feature Article, the strategies of utilizing surfactant‐modified cathodes, hole‐transporting buffer layers, and self‐assembled monolayer (SAM)‐modified anodes are highlighted. In addition to enabling the production of high‐efficiency OLEDs, control of interfaces in both conventional and inverted polymer solar cells is shown to enhance their efficiency and stability; and the tailoring of source–drain electrode–semiconductor interfaces, dielectric–semiconductor interfaces, and ultrathin dielectrics is shown to allow for high‐performance OFETs.