Influence of molecular dynamics on the dielectric properties of poly(9,9-di-n-octylfluorene-altbenzothiadiazole) -based devices

This paper uses Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) techniques to study the molecular relaxations and phase transitions in poly(9,9-di-n-octylfluorene-alt-benzothiadiazole) (F8BT), which has been extensively studied as the active thin film in organic devices. Besides the identification of the glass transition, β relaxation and crystal-to-crystal phase transition, we correlate such phenomena with dielectric and transport mechanisms in diodes with F8BT as the active layer. The β relaxation has been assigned to a transition at about 210 K measured by ¹H and ¹³C solid state NMR, and can be attributed to local motions in the side chains. The glass transition has been detected by DSC and ¹H NMR. Dielectric spectroscopy (DS) carried out at low frequencies on diodes made from F8BT show two peaks which are coincident with the above transitions. This allowed us to correlate the electrical changes in the film with the onset of specific molecular motions. In addition, DS indicates a third peak related with a crystal-to-crystal phase transition. Finally, these transitions were correlated with changes in the carrier mobility recorded in thin films and published recently.