Organic Semiconductors & Photochromic Compounds Come Into The Limelight - Emanuele Orgiu (INRS)

Organic Semiconductors & Photochromic Compounds Come Into The Limelight
Emanuele Orgiu
Centre Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications
Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS)

Abstract: 

Since the late '70s, organic semiconductors have been garnering scientific and technological interest as key active materials for low-cost, flexible and large-area electronics. To date, outstanding advances on both material and processing side are paving the way towards a mature technology which will ultimately meet the many expectations and efforts built up over the years. Unfortunately, Organic Electronics cannot compete by its own or complement the silicon-based electronics in integrating multiple functions in a small area unless novel solutions are brought into play.

Within this seminar, I will summarize some recent progress in combining small molecules, fullerene derivatives as well as polymer semiconductors with photochromic molecules as a most promising approach to fill this scientific and technological gap by developing multifunctional optoelectronic devices such as memories and inverters.

Photochromic molecules are small organic molecules capable of undergoing reversible photo-isomerization between two (meta)stable states which are associated with markedly different properties such as change in dipole moment, HOMO-LUMO gap, redox potential, tunneling barrier to mention some. The structurally controlled incorporation of photochromic molecules can be done at various interfaces of a device, including the electrode/semiconductor or dielectric/semiconductor interface or even as a binary mixture in the active layer, in order to impart a light responsive nature to the device by modulating via light stimuli fundamental physico-chemical properties such as charge injection and transport in the device.

This seminar will focus on some of my more recent attempts [1-3] to bridge the organic semiconductors and the photochromic molecules worlds while outlining some future goals that are still to be pursued to develop highperforming multi-gated devices.

References

[1] Orgiu, E. et al. Nat Chem 2012, 4, 675.

[2] T. Leydecker, M. Herder, E. Pavlica, G. Bratina, S. Hecht, E. Orgiu*, P. Samorì, Nat Nanotech, 2016, 11, 769.

[3] M. El Gemayel, K. Börjesson, M. Herder, D. T. Duong, J. A. Hutchison, C. Ruzié, G. Schweicher, A. Salleo, Y. Geerts, S. Hecht , E. Orgiu*, P. Samorì, Nat Commun, 2015, 6, 6330.

Bio: Emanuele Orgiu is Associate Professor at INRS-EMT (Québec, CA) and Assistant Professor at University of Strasbourg (ISIS, FR). He holds a Ph.D. in Physics of organic devices (2008, University of Cagliari) and works in the fields of materials science and physics,with a focus on interfaces and transport in both 2D-material and organic semiconductor-based (nano)devices.He is member of the Young Academy of Europe(2016), was a Fulbright Fellowship (2007), received the MIT-Under35 France Award(2013).

To know more about Prof. Orgiu research activities, you can consult his web page.

 Cette conférence est présentée par le RQMP Versant Nord du Département de physique de l'Université de Montréal et de Génie physique de la Polytechnique.