Thin-film organic semiconductor materials are emerging as energy-efficient, versatile alternatives to inorganic semiconductors for display and solid-state lighting applications. Additionally, thin-film organic laser and photovoltaic technologies, while not yet competitive with inorganic semiconductor-based analogues, can exhibit small device embodied energies (due to comparatively low temperature and low energy-use fabrication processes) which is of interest for reducing overall device cost. To improve energy conversion efficiency in thin-film organic optoelectronics, light management using nanophotonic structures is necessary. Here, our recent work on improving light trapping and light extraction in organic semiconductor thin films using nanostructured silver plasmonic metasurfaces will be presented [1,2]. Numerous optical phenomena, such as absorption induced scattering, out-of-plane waveguiding and morphology-dependent surface plasmon outcoupling, are identified due to exciton-plasmon coupling between the organic semiconductor and the metasurface. Interactions between localized and propagating surface plasmon polaritons and the excitonic transitions of a variety of organic conjugated polymer materials will be discussed and ways in which these interactions may be optimized for particular optoelectronic applications will be presented.
[1] C. E. Petoukhoff, D. M. O'Carroll, Absorption-Induced Scattering and Surface Plasmon Out-Coupling from Absorber-Coated Plasmonic Metasurfaces. Nat. Commun. 6, 7899-1-13 (2015).
[2] Z. Shen, D. M. O'Carroll, Nanoporous Silver Thin Films: Multifunctional Platforms for Influencing Chain Morphology and Optical Properties of Conjugated Polymers. Adv. Funct. Mater. 25, 3302-3313 (2015).
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