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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/R26658/01
Title: polymer blend semiconductor devices: the interplay of polymer physics and semiconductor physics
Principal Investigator: Jones, Professor R
Other Investigators:
Lidzey, Professor D
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Organisation: University of Sheffield
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 01 July 2001 Ends: 31 December 2004 Value (£): 371,676
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Optical Devices & Subsystems Optical Phenomena
Optoelect. Devices & Circuits
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Chemicals Electronics
Related Grants:
GR/R26641/01 GR/R36329/01
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
The virtue of using polymers as the active semiconductors lies in the scope for fabrication using solution-processing techniques to produce thin films. Much of the progress made with polymer semiconductor devices has been based around the fabrication of'conventional' device architectures, derived from well-established inorganic semiconductor structure. This includes much of the work on polymer FETs and LEDs. New device architectures are now emerging which exploit the solution-processing methods of polymers. In particular, we have found that blends of polymers (which differ in their semiconductor bandgaps and electronegativities) can be used to form self-organised structures which can have very desirable electronic properties; films formed by spin-coating a blend from a common solvent yield a distributed heterojunction semiconductor structure, whose phase size and connectivity is determined by the kinetics of the phase separation process. Selection of the two polymers allows efcient LEDs or photovoltaic diodes. We now need to develop and transfer those insights developed in conventional synthetic polymer arena which will allow one to understand and control the relationship between processing, morphology and interfacial structure in polymer devices. By bringing together theoretical concepts and sophisticated experimental techniques we will obtain a first principles understanding of the links between processing, morphology and device performance.
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Organisation Website: http://www.shef.ac.uk