How organic semiconductors work

Electronics made largely from carbon have already been incorporated into commercial products. To realize the full promise of such organic semiconductors, however, a good understanding of fundamental processes is needed.  We ask simple questions such as “how does an organic semiconductor become doped?” and “what is the ultimate speed of organic devices?” in the context of field effect transistors and photovoltaic devices made from crystals of small molecules (rubrene, C60, HBC).  I will discuss experiments that demonstrate, for the first time, controlled doping in organic semiconductors. I will also discuss the consequences of crystallinity for organic photovoltaics.

Presenter(s)

Art Ramirez received both B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Yale University.  His doctoral thesis dealt with the thermodynamic signature of solitons in a quasi-one dimensional ferromagnet.  Art then did a postdoc at Bell Labs and studied the interplay of superconductivity and magnetism in heavy fermion materials. Between 1986 and 2000 he was Member of Technical Staff at Bell and worked on a variety of different topics in Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, including superconductivity in high-Tc cuprates and buckyballs, colossal magnetoresistance in magnanites, and geometrical frustration in magnetic and structural systems.  Art went to Los Alamos in 2001 where he led the Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics group.  In 2003 he returned to Lucent Technologies Bell Labs as director of Condensed Matter Physics Research and then in 2005 became director of Device Physics Research.  In 2008, he joined LGS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent.  In 2009 he moved to the University of California Santa Cruz where he is Dean of the Baskin School of Engineering. At UCSC, Art is also setting up a materials characterization lab to do research in devices from novel materials and the development of novel multifunctional systems.