Temperature dependent characteristics of flexible p-PANI/n-ZnO based hybrid heterojunction diode

Abstract

This study aims to develop and characterize a flexible p-PANI/n-ZnO heterojunction diode developed from a combination of electrochemical and sputtering technique. Investigation of structural properties and morphology of the thin films has been done from XRD and SEM analysis. To study the temperature effect on the electrical properties of the diode, current–voltage–temperature (I–V–T) measurements were done for the temperature range 25–300 K. Applying the ideal thermionic emission theory, various diode parameters like reverse saturation current, quality factor, series resistance and barrier height were computed utilizing the semilogarithmic plot of I–V curve and Cheungs’ method. Barrier height, reverse saturation current and quality factor calculated from ln(I) versus V curve were observed to vary from 0.0627–0.725 eV, 0.236–98.8 nA and 54.43–3.29 respectively over the temperature range 25–300 K. It has been found that the series resistance falls with a rise in temperature. The barrier height, series resistance and ideality factor were observed to vary from 0.0628–0.692 eV, 15 900–46.8 Kohm and 41.88–2.27 respectively for the temperature range 25–300 K. The activation energy estimated from Arrhenius plot was observed to be 14.51 meV. Additionally, the fabricated PANI/ZnO diode was mechanically robust that can be bent without affecting its performance.