Roughness-induced energetic disorder at the metal/organic interface

TL;DR

This paper calculates the energetic disorder caused by surface roughness at metal/organic interfaces and finds it has minimal impact on charge injection for moderately rough electrodes, challenging recent claims.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis showing that roughness-induced energetic disorder is negligible for moderately rough electrodes, contradicting previous reports.

Findings

Roughness-induced energetic disorder is small for moderate roughness.

Such disorder does not significantly affect charge injection.

Contradicts recent claims about the impact of roughness.

Abstract

The amplitude of the roughness-induced energetic disorder at the metal/organic interface is calculated. It was found that for moderately rough electrodes, the correction to the electrostatic image potential at the charge location is small. For this reason, roughness-induced energetic disorder cannot noticeably affect charge carrier injection, contrary to the recent reports.