Charge transport modulation in organic electronic diodes

Sammanfattning: Since the discovery of conducting polymers three decades ago the field of organic electronics has evolved rapidly. Organic light emitting diodes have already reached the consumer market, while organic solar cells and transistors are rapidly maturing. One of the great benefits with this class of materials is that they can be processed from solution. This enables several very cheap production methods, such as printing and spin coating, and opens up the possibility to use unconventional substrates, such as flexible plastic foils and paper. Another great benefit is the possibility of tailoring the molecules through carefully controlled synthesis, resulting in a multitude of different functionalities.This thesis reports how charge transport can be altered in solid-state organic electronic devices, with specific focus on memory applications. The first six chapters give a brief review of the field of solid-state organic electronics, with focus on electronic properties, resistance switch mechanisms and systems. Paper 1 and 3 treat Rose Bengal switch devices in detail – how to improve these devices for use in cross-point arrays as well as the origin of the switch effect. Paper 2 investigates how the work function of a conducting polymer can be modified to allow for better electron injection into an organic light emitting diode. The aim of the work in papers 4 and 5 is to understand the behavior of switchable charge trap devices based on blends of photochromic molecules and organic semiconductors. With this in mind, charge transport in the presence of traps is investigated in paper 4 and photochromic molecules is investigated using quantum chemical methods in paper 5.