Field effect and charge injection in hybrid nanorod heterostructure

Recent studies on organic/inorganic heterostructures have indicated that interface morphology plays an important role in determining the charge transport properties. Hybrid heterostructure light-emitting diodes mixing donor and acceptor semiconductors appear to offer the best opportunity in achieving superior performance and there are indications that a network of percolated heterojunctions can be very effective in promoting light absorption/emission. Charge transport however can be more complex in a nanorod heterostructure as the charge flow at the interface will depend on the injection mechanism(s) as well as the interface field strength. In this work, we examined the current density–voltage characteristics of the hybrid NPB (N, N′-di(napth-2-yl)-N-N′-diphenylbenzidine)–ZnO nanorod heterostructure and attempted to identify the transport mechanism(s) close to the tips of the nanorods. Our study indicated that charge flow essentially followed the conventional pattern changing from a linear regime (emission-limited) to a quadratic regime (space-charge limited) and possibly to a rapid rise in current (trap-free injection). Detailed evaluation of the changes in the reported conductivity data further suggested the conduction mechanism (up to a p-layer thickness of 400 nm) was dominated by space-charge limited current in the NPB layer, which also resulted in substantial charge pile-up near the tips of the nanorods. An interface charge layer responsible for the barrier height modification effect could be used to explain the observed "blue-shift" in the emission spectra of the nanorod heterostructure light-emitting diode as reported by Sun et al. .