Speaker: Professor Paul Burn (University of Queensland)
Date: 28th August 2009
The application of conjugated ‘organic’ (plastic) materials in opto-electronic devices is one of the fastest growing fields in chemistry and condensed matter physics. The importance of the field was recognized in 2000 by the award of the Nobel Prize to Shirakawa, McDairmid, and Heeger (a chemistry and physics team) who were the pioneers of work on ‘conducting’ polymers, that is polymers that had conductivity similar to metals. However, the ‘semiconducting’ properties of conjugated ‘organic’ materials have proved more fruitful with such compounds being applied as the active layers in devices such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), solar cells, plastic electronics (field effect transistors), and sensors. Of these applications the use of OLEDs in displays and lighting is the most advanced. For all these applications the photonic and electronic properties, e.g., photoluminescence quantum yields and charge mobility respectively, are dependent on how each (macro)molecule interacts with its neighbours. These interactions are turn is dependent on the shape of each (macro)molecule. In this seminar we will explore how the shape of the ‘organic’ semiconductors affect their performance in a range of device applications.