Experimentally Validated Hopping-Transport Model for Energetically Disordered Organic Semiconductors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a variable range hopping (VRH) model for charge transport in disordered organic semiconductors, validated by experiments and simulations, offering improved parameter extraction over traditional models like eGDM.

Contribution

The paper develops and validates a VRH-based mobility model integrated into a drift-diffusion solver, providing a more accurate description of charge transport in disordered organic semiconductors.

Findings

VRH model agrees well with Monte Carlo simulations.

Critical ratio of aNN/α ~3 determines importance of non-nearest neighbor hopping.

Disorder values range from 45-120 meV, with no clear link to photovoltaic performance.

Abstract

Charge transport in disordered organic semiconductors occurs by hopping of charge carriers between localized sites that are randomly distributed in a strongly energy dependent density of states. Extracting disorder and hopping parameters from experimental data like temperature dependent current-voltage characteristics typically relies on parametrized mobility functionals that are integrated in a drift-diffusion solver. Surprisingly, the functional based on the extended Gaussian disorder model (eGDM) has been extremely successful at this, despite it being based on the assumption of nearest neighbor hopping (nnH) on a regular lattice. We here propose a variable range hopping (VRH) model that has been integrated in a freeware drift-diffusion solver. The mobility model has been calibrated using kinetic Monte Carlo calculations and shows good agreement with the Monte Carlo calculations over the experimentally relevant part of the parameter space. The model is applied to temperature-dependent space charge limited current (SCLC) measurements of different systems. In contrast to the eGDM, the VRH model provides a consistent description of both p-type and n-type devices. We find a critical ratio of aNN/$\alpha$ (mean inter-site distance / localization radius) of ~3 below which hopping to non-nearest neighbors becomes important around room temperature and the eGDM cannot be used for parameter extraction. Typical (Gaussian) disorder values in the range 45-120 meV are found, without any clear correlation with photovoltaic performance when the same active layer is used in an organic solar cell.