A.c. and d.c. conduction processes in octakis[(4-tert-butylbenzylthio)-porphyrazinato]Cu(II) thin films with gold electrodes

Abstract

The d.c. and a.c. electrical transport properties of Au/Pz/Au devices with various thickness of Pz(octakis[(4-tert-butylbenzylthio)-porphyrazinato]Cu(II)) layer have been investigated. Measurements revealed that, in contrast to previously investigated Au/Pc/Au structures, low voltage d.c. behaviour of the films can be described by the field-lowering mechanisms with a log(J) ∝ V ^1/2 current density-voltage characteristics under forward and reverse bias. For high reverse voltages, the observed ln(J/V ²) – 1/V characteristics indicated that the origin of conduction mechanism is Fowler–Nordheim tunnelling (FNT). On the other hand, the voltage dependence of current density at the higher forward-voltage region indicates that the mechanism of conduction in Au/Pz/Au devices is space charge limited conduction dominated by exponential trap distribution. A thickness independent barrier height was observed for tunnelling, while the total trap concentration show a general tendency to decrease with increasing film thickness. The a.c. conductivity showed two regions in the ln(σ _a.c.) – ln( f ) plots having different slopes, leading to the conclusion that for low frequency region, the dominant conduction mechanism is a small polaron tunnelling at all temperatures, whereas for high frequency region, correlated barrier hopping model is the dominant mechanism in the investigated devices.