Molecular Devices

Overview

Organic semiconductors (OSCs) display a variety of tunable chemical and physical properties and are relatively inexpensive in comparison to inorganic semiconductors [1]. In particular, many OSCs hold long spin relaxation time, support both electron and hole transport and are sensitive to the change of external parameters such as light, magnetic field and temperature. Furthermore, the charge and spin transport characteristics in OSC based devices can be tuned by engineering the molecular hybrid interfaces [1-3].

We focus on the realization of vertical organic spin valves (OSVs), organic field effect transistors (OFETs) and hot electron devices. Recently, we have successfully demonstrated the operation of a molecular spin photovoltaic device [4] and we are currently studying ambipolar OFETs for logic operations.  We have also designed hot electron devices which allow us to perform in-device molecular spectroscopy (IMOS) [5-7].

We are also investigating interfaces between organic molecules and 2D layered materials, such as graphene, exhibiting unique electronic band structure. We have optimized gate tunable graphene electrodes for vertical OFETs and logic devices [8,9] and we are interested in the spintronic properties of graphene-organic based lateral spin valves.