This is were the action is - in 2007. Organic semiconductors are hot topics in R&D, and first products in the form of OLED's are on the market. RFID's may or may not follow soon. | ||
Materials Science and technology for organic conductors and semiconductors is far from being well understood and there are major technological challenges, too. To give just one example: Oxygen, quite ubiquitous in air, is deadly for organic semiconductor devices. How can you keep a (cheap) device absolutely airtight for 20 years or so? | ||
But first things first: What exactly are organic semiconductors? | ||
There is no simple answer. Essentially you need two ingredients: Some organic molecule with a conjugated carbon-carbon chain. This means that there is a succession of "single bond - double bond", i.e. –C=C–C=C–C=C–C=C– with all kinds of stuff on the one remaining free valence of any C atom. There also must be some "doping" because the conjugated backbone chain of the polymer molecule is (surprisingly?!) not conductive or semi-conductive. | ||
Doping is written in quotation marks because it has nothing to do with what we have learned about doping in Si - except that you add some impurities to your semiconductor. | ||
We will come back to this topic later (if there is time). Meanwhile you may activate the folllwing links: | ||
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© H. Föll (Semiconductor Technology - Script)