Determination of charge transport activation energy and injection barrier in organic semiconductor devices

Charge carrier transport in organic semiconductor devices is thermally activated with characteristic activation energies in the range of 0.2–0.6 eV, leading to strongly temperature-dependent behaviour. For designing efficient organic semiconductor materials and devices, it is therefore indispensable to understand the origin of these activation energies. We propose that in bilayer organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) employing a polar electron transport layer, as well as in metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) devices, the hole injection barrier Einj and the hole mobility activation energy Eμ can be decoupled from each other if temperature-dependent capacitance-frequency (C-f-T) and MIS-CELIV (charge extraction by linearly increasing voltage) experiments are combined. While the C-f-T signal contains information of both injection and transport, the CELIV current is expected to be insensitive to the electrode injection properties. We employ numerical drift-diffusion simulations to investigate the accuracy of this analytical parameter extraction approach and to develop criteria for its validity. We show that the implicit assumption of constant charge density and field profiles leads to systematic errors in determining the activation energies. Thus, one should be aware of the intrinsic limitations of the analytical Arrhenius fit, and for more accurate parameter determination a full drift-diffusion modelling is advised. Applying the analytical method to a standard bilayer OLED, we find that the total activation energy of 0.5 eV for the hole current can be split into contributions of ≈0.25 eV each for injection barrier and mobility. Finally, we also discuss the broader applicability of this method for other device stacks and material combinations.