Andy Platt: Towards understanding charge transport in organic semiconductors

Andy Platt: Organic semiconductor materials have attracted significant attention in recent years as they offer significant advantages over traditional silicon technology including their low cost fabrication and tunability through functionalization of the molecules. Projected uses include polymer lasers, flexible displays, and printable photovoltaic cells. However, despite this interest in application, the actual mechanics of charge carrier photogeneration and transport that make such devices possible is not completely understood and remains controversial, partly due to difficulties in assessing intrinsic properties that are often masked by impurities, grain boundaries, etc. In this presentation, we will summarize our recent work directed towards understanding ultrafast dynamics of excitons and charge carriers in high-performance functionalized pentacene- and anthradithiophene-based electronic materials. We also present our future plans to use these novel materials to study charge transport processes on the microscopic, down to a single-molecule, level.