Low dark leakage current in organic planar heterojunction photodiodes

It is often suggested that the dark leakage current of organic photodiodes is due to extrinsic leakage paths that do not involve the electronic junction. By studying a series of devices, where the acceptor is kept constant (C₇₀) and the donor material is varied, we find a direct correlation between the strength of the sub-gap signature of the charge-transfer states and the leakage current. Attributing the differences in the sub-gap absorption to the donor's sub-gap states suggests that the donor's side of the junction should be made longer, to push the Fermi level at V = 0 towards the acceptor's LUMO, and thus, an optimized value of 800 Pacm^-2 at V = -1 V is reported.