Abstract
The fundamental limits of inorganic semiconductors for light emitting applications, such as holographic displays, biomedical imaging and ultrafast data processing and communication, might be overcome by hybridization with their organic counterparts, which feature enhanced frequency response and colour range. Innovative hybrid inorganic/organic structures exploit efficient electrical injection and high excitation density of inorganic semiconductors and subsequent energy transfer to the organic semiconductor, provided that the radiative emission yield is high. An inherent obstacle to that end is the unfavourable energy level offset at hybrid inorganic/organic structures, which rather facilitates charge transfer that quenches light emission. Here, we introduce a technologically relevant method to optimize the hybrid structure's energy levels, here comprising ZnO and a tailored ladder-type oligophenylene. The ZnO work function is substantially lowered with an organometallic donor monolayer, aligning the frontier levels of the inorganic and organic semiconductors. This increases the hybrid structure's radiative emission yield sevenfold, validating the relevance of our approach.
Highlights
The fundamental limits of inorganic semiconductors for light emitting applications, such as holographic displays, biomedical imaging and ultrafast data processing and communication, might be overcome by hybridization with their organic counterparts, which feature enhanced frequency response and colour range
The major advantage arising from this combination is that complementary favourable features of these material classes can be utilized for producing light
Lowering the work function of ZnO using dipolar self-assembled monolayers attached to ZnO has met with only moderate success; the lowest values of F achieved have been in the range of 3.5–4.3 eV, which is insufficient to eliminate energy level offsets with most organic semiconductor materials
Summary
The fundamental limits of inorganic semiconductors for light emitting applications, such as holographic displays, biomedical imaging and ultrafast data processing and communication, might be overcome by hybridization with their organic counterparts, which feature enhanced frequency response and colour range. The ZnO work function is substantially lowered with an organometallic donor monolayer, aligning the frontier levels of the inorganic and organic semiconductors This increases the hybrid structure’s radiative emission yield sevenfold, validating the relevance of our approach. Electrons and holes need not be transported separately across the hybrid interface, but resonant energy transfer can directly connect the inorganic and organic exciton states, which, in a coherent regime, might even lead to the formation of hybrid excitons Inspired by this synergistic route of function sharing, previous work has addressed and validated various theoretical and experimental aspects of HIOS, such as the presence of efficient energy transfer, without truly demonstrating the superior potential for light emission[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Lowering the work function of ZnO using dipolar self-assembled monolayers attached to ZnO has met with only moderate success; the lowest values of F achieved have been in the range of 3.5–4.3 eV (refs 21,22), which is insufficient to eliminate energy level offsets with most organic semiconductor materials
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