1. Could you explain the significance of your article to the non-specialist?

In electronic devices based on organic compounds it is required to fabricate high-quality electric contacts to this rather sensitive, soft class of materials. The standard method used in conventional electronic devices, metal evaporation, does not work 

because the deposited metal atoms diffuse into the organic substrate and cause degradation of the molecules and lead to electrical shortcuts. In our article we demonstrate that metal deposited using an electrochemical method recently developed by Kolb and coworkers in Ulm (Germany) does not show any such shortcuts and that electrodes fabricated using this approach are well suited to inject charge into molecular materials.

 

2. What has motivated you to conduct this work?

We work in the field of organic electronics and have experienced severe difficulties in manufacturing organic field effect transistors (OFETs). After we have identified the metal contacts to be one of the major sources of our problems we have searched for alternative ways to put metals on organic thin films. 

 

3. Where do you see this work developing in the future?

In the future we will, on the short term, optimize the organic molecules from which the ultrathin organic films used in our work are made. On the longer term we will build a real device which will allow us to understand charge injection and transport in organic materials in more detail. 

 

4. Are there any particular challenges facing future research in this area?

Organic compounds are rather soft and sensitive, depositing metals and fabricating electrical contacts will remain a major challenge in this area. For us the most important challenge is to determine the true intrinsic charge transport properties of organic materials, which are not effected by extrinsic effects like domain boundaries, defects and, most importantly, contact problems.