Recently there has been an explosion of interest in the potential use of individual molecules as electronic device elements. The electrical characteristics of molecular junctions, individual molecules spanning the gap between two metal electrodes, have been reported and certain molecular species have been found to exhibit highly nonlinear current versus applied-voltage (I/V) properties. Intriguingly, these nonlinearities (pronounced peaks) in the I/V behavior are extremely sensitive to the functionalization of the molecule forming the junction. The substitution of a single functional group can completely eliminate the nonlinear behavior. Many have suggested that resonant tunneling could lead to the observed nonlinearities. Resonant tunneling requires a double potential barrier along the electron transfer coordinate. We propose a possible physical origin for such a double potential barrier and support the model with first principles electronic structure calculations. Next we discuss a quantum mechanical tunneling model for electron transport through the double potential barrier. The model gives insight into the origin of nonlinear I/V behavior in molecular junctions and the effect of substituent functional groups on the junction molecule.

We report results of two-dimensional electrostatic modeling for (top-contact) organic field effect transistors, focusing on the formation of the conductive channel. The effect on channel formation of the choice of the source and drain contact metal is investigated. High work function metal (e.g., gold) source and drain contacts produce a conducting p-type region near these contacts. In contrast, low work function metal source and drain contacts (e.g., magnesium) lead to depleted regions. In the center of the device, between the source and drain contacts, the channel carrier density at a fixed gate bias is determined by the work function of the gate contact material, and is essentially independent of the metal used to form the source and drain contacts. The dependence of the transistor threshold voltage on the gate contact metal work function and the device implications of the spatial variation of the induced charge density are discussed.

Effect of host polymers on energy transfer in phosphorescent dye doped polymer light emitting devices has been investigated. Poly (N-vinylcarbazol) [PVK] and poly (9,9'-di-n-hexyl-2,7-fluorene-alt-1,4(2,5dinhexyloxy) phenylene) [PFHP] were examined as the host materials for the phosphorescent dyes fac tris(2-phenypyridine) irdium(III) [Ir(ppy)3] and 2,3,7,8,12,13,17,18-octaethyl-21H,23H-porphyrin platinum(II) [PtOEP]. The host and guest materials have the large spectrum overlap between the emission of the hosts and absorption of the guests. When the guests were doped in PVK, the singlet-singlet and triplet-triplet energy transfer took place efficiently. On the contrary, the energy transfer did not take place from φ-conjugated polymer PFHP to the guests, even though common requirements for Förster and Dexter energy transfer were fulfilled. Host aggregation in PFHP based phosphorescent dye doped light emitting devices can play an undesired role obstructing efficient energy transfer.

In this paper we report a method for tuning the extent of hole injection into the active light emitting tris- (8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq3) layer in organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). This is made possible by modifying the indium tin oxide (ITO) anode with an oxidized transport layer (OTL) comprising a hole transporting polycarbonate of N,N'-bis(3-hydroxymethyl)-N,N'-bis(phenyl) benzidine and diethylene glycol (PC-TPB-DEG) doped with varying concentrations of antimonium hexafluoride salt of N,N,N',N'-tetra-p-tolyl-4,4'-biphenyldiamine (TMTPD+ SbF6 -). The conductivity of the OTL can be changed over three orders of magnitude depending on salt loading. The analysis of hole and electron current variations in these devices indicates that optimizing the conductivity of the OTL enables the modulation of hole injection into the Alq3 layer. The bipolar charge transport properties for OLEDs in which the interfacial carrier injection barriers have been minimized, are governed by the conductivities of the respective layers and in this case it is shown that the variable conductivity of the OTL does allow for better control of the same. Accordingly, varying the concentration of holes in the device indicates that beyond an optimum concentration of holes, further hole injection results in the formation of light quenching cationic species and the initiation of oxidative degradation processes in the Alq3 layer, thus accelerating the intrinsic degradation of these devices. The variable conductivity of the OTL can hence be used to minimize the occurrence of these processes.

Pentacene is widely used in organic thin film transistors due to relatively large mobilities. It has been suggested that the functional behavior in these organic thin film transistors occurs within the first few molecular layers of the device at the interfaces between the organic and the metals and dielectrics used in fabrication of the thin film transistors. This makes understanding the electronic behavior of the interfaces involved in these devices critical. In order to better understand these interfaces we investigated the interface formation using photoemission spectroscopy to examine layer by layer growth of pentacene on Au and Ag and vice versa. We observed indications of dipole formation at the interfaces between the metals and organics for organic on metal deposition. On the other hand, more complex material intermixing takes place during metal on organic deposition and as a result, the electronic structure of the interface differs from that of organic on metal deposition.

A novel conformational searching scheme is employed to identify low energy structures for low-degree polymers of 3-phenyl-1-ureidonitrile, a proposed thin film data storage material. Vibrational analysis of the predicted polymer structures is consistent with experimental reports and supports the experimentally proposed polymerization mechanism.

In recent years, polymer films have found an increasing role in sensors due to their unique characteristics. It is widely accepted that the sensitivity of a film is proportional to the surface area per unit mass. Thin films with very large surface areas can be easily fabricated by electrospinning, wherein a polymer solution is exposed to a high static voltage, creating sub-micron or nanometer scale fibers collected as a non-woven membrane. Electrospun nanofibrous membranes have surface areas approximately one to two orders of the magnitude higher than those found in continuous thin films. It is expected that their sensitivities are potentially as large. In this paper, the first use of an electrospun membrane as a highly responsive fluorescence quenching-based optical sensor is reported. A new fluorescent polymer, polyacrylic acid - poly (pyrene methanol) (PAA-PM), was synthesized via covalent attachment of the fluorescent indicator, pyrene methanol (PM), onto polyacrylic acid (PAA). Optical chemical sensors were then fabricated by electrospinning PAA-PM and thermal crosslinkable polyurethane latex mixture solutions. The synthesis, characterization, electrospinning fabrication, and comparison of the sensitivities to analytes such as ferric ions, mercury, and 2,4-dinitrotoluene between the electrospun membranes and electrostatically layer-by-layer (ELBL) assembled films are presented.

Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) containing cathode buffer layers of nanometer thickness were fabricated and their electrical and emitting properties were investigated. The OLEDs have an indium tin oxide (ITO) anode/ copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) / N, N'-dephenyl-N,N'-bis(3-methylphenyl)-1,1'-diphenyl-4,4'-diamine (TPD) / 8- hydroxyquinoline aluminum (Alq3) / buffer layer / Al cathode structure with the buffer layers made from alternating thin films of Alq3 and Al with nanometer thickness. Improvement of driving voltage and the efficiency for the devices were observed by insertion of the buffer layer. It was estimated that some modulations of the Schottky barrier at the Alq3 and the Al cathode interface were induced due to the insertion of the buffer layer and it caused an enhancement of electron injection from the Al cathode. A model of the band structure at the buffer layer was proposed.

Short-circuit photocurrents (ISC) due to surface plasmon (SP) excitations have been investigated for the photoelectric cells using Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films of merocyanine (MC) dye. The MC dye exhibits p-type conduction, and the Schottky and Ohmic contacts are obtained at the interfaces between MC LB films and Al thin films and between MC LB films and Ag thin films, respectively. Since the Schottky diodes show the photoelectric effects, the Schottky photoelectric cells have been constructed. The cells with two kinds of structures, that is, prism/Al/MC/Ag (type I) and prism/MgF2/Al/MC/Ag (type II), have been prepared. In the attenuated total reflection (ATR) method, the types I and II have the Kretschmann and both the Kretschmann and Otto configurations, respectively. SP has been resonantly excited at the interface between Ag and air for the type I and at the interfaces between MgF2 and Al between Ag and air for the type II. The ATR and the ISC properties have been simultaneously measured as a function of the incident angles of the laser beams. The peaks of the ISC have corresponded to the resonant angles of the ATR curves. The electric fields and optical absorptions in the cells have been also calculated using the dielectric constants and the film thicknesses obtained from the ATR measurements. The calculated absorptions in the MC layers as a function of the incident angles have corresponded to the results of ISC. It has been estimated that the ISC for both types I and II could be enhanced by the excitations of SP in the ATR configurations.