Ambipolar charge carrier transport in mixed organic layers of phthalocyanine and fullerene

Mixed layers of copper-phthalocyanine (p-conductive) and fullerene (n-conductive) are used for the fabrication of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and inverters. Regarding the electrical characteristics of these donor-acceptor blends they show ambipolar charge carrier transport, whereas devices made from only one of the materials show unipolar behavior. Such mixed films are model systems for ambipolar transport with adjustable field-effect mobilities for electrons and holes. By variation of the mixing ratio it is possible to balance the transport of both charge-carrier types. In this paper we discuss the variation of mobility and threshold voltage with the mixing ratio and demonstrate ambipolar inverters as a leadoff application. The gained results were analyzed by simulations using an analytical model for ambipolar transistors and subsequently compared to complementary inverters

Differences of interface and bulk transport properties in polymer field-effect devices

The influence of substrate treatment with self-assembled monolayers and thermal annealing was analysed by electrical and structural measurements on field-effect transistors (FETs) and metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) diodes using poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) as a semiconducting polymer and Si/SiO2 wafers as a substrate. It is found that surface treatment using silanising agents like hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) and octadecyltrichlorosi-lane (OTS) can increase the field-effect mobility by up to a factor of 50, reaching values in saturation of more than 4E-2 cm^2/Vs at room temperature. While there is a clear correlation between the obtained field-effect mobility and the contact angle of water on the treated substrates, X-ray diffraction and capacitance measurements on MIS diodes show that structural and electrical properties in the bulk of the P3HT films are not influenced by the surface treatment. On the other hand, thermal annealing is found to cause an increase of grain size, bulk relaxation frequency and thereby of the mobility perpendicular to the SiO2/P3HT interface, but has very little influence on the field-effect mobility. Temperature dependent investigations on MIS diodes and FETs show that the transport perpendicular to the substrate plane is thermally activated and can be described by hopping in a Gaussian density of states, whereas the field-effect mobility in the substrate plane is almost temperature independent over a wide range. This investigations reveal significant differ-ences between interface and bulk transport properties in polymer field-effect devices.Comment: accepted at Organic electronic

Nanofriction mechanisms derived from the dependence of friction on load and sliding velocity from air to UHV on hydrophilic silicon

This paper examines friction as a function of the sliding velocity and applied normal load from air to UHV in a scanning force microscope (SFM) experiment in which a sharp silicon tip slides against a flat Si(100) sample. Under ambient conditions, both surfaces are covered by a native oxide, which is hydrophilic. During pump-down in the vacuum chamber housing the SFM, the behavior of friction as a function of the applied normal load and the sliding velocity undergoes a change. By analyzing these changes it is possible to identify three distinct friction regimes with corresponding contact properties: (a) friction dominated by the additional normal forces induced by capillarity due to the presence of thick water films, (b) higher drag force from ordering effects present in thin water layers and (c) low friction due to direct solid-solid contact for the sample with the counterbody. Depending on environmental conditions and the applied normal load, all three mechanisms may be present at one time. Their individual contributions can be identified by investigating the dependence of friction on the applied normal load as well as on the sliding velocity in different pressure regimes, thus providing information about nanoscale friction mechanisms

Limb imaging of the Venus O2 visible nightglow with the Venus Monitoring Camera

We investigated the Venus O2 visible nightglow with imagery from the Venus Monitoring Camera on Venus Express. Drawing from data collected between April 2007 and January 2011, we study the global distribution of this emission, discovered in the late 70s by the Venera 9 and 10 missions. The inferred limb-viewing intensities are on the order of 150 kiloRayleighs at the lower latitudes and seem to drop somewhat towards the poles. The emission is generally stable, although there are episodes when the intensities rise up to 500 kR. We compare a set of Venus Monitoring Camera observations with coincident measurements of the O2 nightglow at 1.27 {\mu}m made with the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer, also on Venus Express. From the evidence gathered in this and past works, we suggest a direct correlation between the instantaneous emissions from the two O2 nightglow systems. Possible implications regarding the uncertain origin of the atomic oxygen green line at 557.7 nm are noted.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

The influence of distraction on speech processing: How selective is selective attention?

-* indicates shared first authorship - The present study investigated the effects of selective attention on the processing of morphosyntactic errors in unattended parts of speech. Two groups of German native (L1) speakers participated in the present study. Participants listened to sentences in which irregular verbs were manipulated in three different conditions (correct, incorrect but attested ablaut pattern, incorrect and crosslinguistically unattested ablaut pattern). In order to track fast dynamic neural reactions to the stimuli, electroencephalography was used. After each sentence, participants in Experiment 1 performed a semantic judgement task, which deliberately distracted the participants from the syntactic manipulations and directed their attention to the semantic content of the sentence. In Experiment 2, participants carried out a syntactic judgement task, which put their attention on the critical stimuli. The use of two different attentional tasks allowed for investigating the impact of selective attention on speech processing and whether morphosyntactic processing steps are performed automatically. In Experiment 2, the incorrect attested condition elicited a larger N400 component compared to the correct condition, whereas in Experiment 1 no differences between conditions were found. These results suggest that the processing of morphosyntactic violations in irregular verbs is not entirely automatic but seems to be strongly affected by selective attention

Signatures of Interchange Reconnection: STEREO, ACE and Hinode Observations Combined

Combining STEREO, ACE and Hinode observations has presented an opportunity to follow a filament eruption and coronal mass ejection (CME) on the 17th of October 2007 from an active region (AR) inside a coronal hole (CH) into the heliosphere. This particular combination of `open' and closed magnetic topologies provides an ideal scenario for interchange reconnection to take place. With Hinode and STEREO data we were able to identify the emergence time and type of structure seen in the in-situ data four days later. On the 21st, ACE observed in-situ the passage of an ICME with `open' magnetic topology. The magnetic field configuration of the source, a mature AR located inside an equatorial CH, has important implications for the solar and interplanetary signatures of the eruption. We interpret the formation of an `anemone' structure of the erupting AR and the passage in-situ of the ICME being disconnected at one leg, as manifested by uni-directional suprathermal electron flux in the ICME, to be a direct result of interchange reconnection between closed loops of the CME originating from the AR and `open' field lines of the surrounding CH.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, accepted Annales Geophysica