Effects of carrier mobility and morphology in organic semiconductor spin valves

Abstract

We studied spin transport in four organic semiconductors (OSCs) with different electronic properties. Magnetoresistance (MR) effects were observed up to room temperature in junctions based on an electron-carrying OSC, tris(8-hyroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq3) and a hole-carrying OSC, copper phthalocyanine (CuPc). The MR shows similar temperature dependence for these two OSCs. We also investigated junctions based on two high lateral mobility electron-carrying OSCs, 3,4,9,10-perylenetetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA) and N,N'-bis(4-trifluoromethylbenzyl)-1,4,5,8-naphthalenetetracarboxylic diimide (CF3-NTCDI). However, these junctions showed much weaker spin transport effects. Morphological studies suggest that these high mobility OSC films have much rougher surfaces than either Alq3 or CuPc, therefore the degradation of spin transport may originate from enhanced scattering due to the rougher FM/OSC interfaces. Our study shows that FM/OSC interfaces play an important role for spin transport in organic devices and need further exploration.