Nuclear relaxation measurements in organic semiconducting polymers for application to organic spintronics

作者:Thenell E F*; Limes M E; Sorte E G; Vardeny Z V; Saam B
来源:Physical Review B, 2015, 91(4): 045205.
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.91.045205

摘要

NMR measurements of spin-lattice relaxation of hydrogen nuclei in two prototype organic semiconducting solids, MEH-PPV and DOO-PPV, were carried out for temperatures between 4.2 K and room temperature, and for applied magnetic fields between 1.25 and 4.7 T. These pi-conjugated polymers are of interest for use as the active semiconducting layer in spintronic devices. They typically exhibit weak spin-orbit coupling, and the interaction with inhomogeneous hyperfine fields generated by the nuclear spins plays a significant, if not dominant, role in the spin coherence and spin relaxation of electronic charge carriers. Our studies were conducted on unbiased bulk material with no photo-illumination. The characteristic H-1 longitudinal relaxation times in these materials ranges from hundreds of milliseconds to > 1000 s, and are predominantly nonmonoexponential. We present the data both in terms of a recovery time, T-1/2, corresponding to 50% recovery of thermal magnetization from saturation and in terms of a "T-1 spectrum" produced via a numerical Laplace transform of the time-domain data. The evidence best supports relaxation to paramagnetic centers (radicals) mediated by nuclear spin diffusion as the primary mechanism: the observed relaxation is predominantly nonmonoexponential, and a characteristic T-1 minimum as a function of temperature is apparent for both materials somewhere between 77 K and room temperature. The paramagnetic centers may be somewhat-delocalized charge-carrier pairs (i.e., polarons) along the polymer backbone, although the concentration in an unbiased sample (no carrier injection) should be very low. Alternatively, the centers may be localized defects, vacancies, or impurities. Our results may also be used to judge the feasibility of Overhauser-type dynamic nuclear polarization from polarized charge carriers or optically pumped exciton states.

  • 出版日期2015-1-28