Organic materials are increasingly being incorporated into
devices as active materials that emit light or carry electrical
signals
Organic materials provide advantages over traditional inorganic
materials because of the wide range of processing methods
for large area and high volume applications and ease of changing
functionality with chemistry
Significant challenges remain because charge transport mechanisms
are different from inorganic materials, local relaxations
affect performance, and the materials are often very sensitive
to environmental conditions.
Objective
Develop standard test methods for advanced organic electronics
materials including dielectric permittivity at microwave frequencies
and dielectric withstanding voltage for embedded passive devices
Develop and apply nondestructive measurement methods to
characterize the electronic and interfacial structure of organic
electronics materials with respect to processing methods,
processing variables, and materials characteristics
NIST Role
Provide the integrated measurement and standards
tools needed to accelerate progress in organic electronics
Develop and guide standards infrastructure necessary to
facilitate commerce and accelerate progress
Highlights
Dielectric Measurements for Embedded Passive Devices
Embedded passive devices consist of filled polymers with
designed electrical properties at GHz frequencies
Developed test method comprising of capacitive or resistive
termination in a transmission line in a coaxial fixture
Allows characterization of advanced materials without the
need for specially fabricated microstrip resonator test structures
Test method adopted by IPC as a standard test method for
embedded passive devices
Molecular Orientation of Organic Semiconductors
The orientation of organic semiconductors at the dielectric
interface can control device performance
NEXAFS spectroscopy provides quantification of molecular
orientation in very thin films
NEXAFS data, expressed as a dichroic ratio, shows clear
“edge-on” orientation in pentacene and poly (3-hexyl
thiophene)
Performance of devices can be correlated with the observed
molecular orientation
Customers and Impact
Two test methods for embedded passive devices accepted by
IPC standard test methods committee
X-ray and neutron reflectivity measurements elucidate mechanism
of water transport in barrier coatings for OLEDs
Organic semiconductor orientation from NEXAFS
NIST Contributors
Eric Lin*
Jan Obrzut*
Dean DeLongchamp
Oleksiy Anopchenko
Kenji Kano
Bryan Vogt
Erin Jablonski
Hae-Jeong Lee
Wen-li Wu
Sarah Sambasivan
Daniel Fischer
Curt Richter
Eric Vogel
Lee Richter
Sushil Satija
Collaborators:
D. McGregor(1)
G. S. Cox(1)
J. Felten(1)
T. Bergstresser(2)
K. Fjeldsted(3)
D. Fritz(4)
R. Crosswell(5)
L. Moro(6)
N. Rutherford(6)
V. Subramanian(7)
R. Pilston(8)
Z. Bao(9)
G. Jabbour(10)
B. Ong(11)
A. Afzali(12)
Electronics Materials Group
Polymers Division
Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory
