Structure and physicochemical properties of thin film photosemiconductor cells based on porphine derivatives

Abstract

Photosemiconductor thin films based on two organic porphine derivatives have been investigated. These compounds have different pendent groups; the film morphology, along with the specific fabrication technique, is determined to a great extent by these groups. The films have been fabricated by vacuum sputtering and using the Langmuir−Schaefer method. According to the atomic force microscopy (AFM) data, the Langmuir−Schaefer films are more homogeneous than the sputtered ones. It is shown that the sputtered films based on substituted porphine have a looser stacking than the initial analog. A spectroscopy study revealed a bathochromic shift of the Soret band in the Langmuir−Schaefer films–sputtered films series. This shift is explained by the increase in the concentration and size of molecular aggregates in sputtered films. It is shown that a polycrystalline C₆₀ fullerene film deposited onto an amorphous substituted porphine layer improves the photoelectric characteristics of the latter. Both the time stability of the photodiode structure and its ampere‒watt sensitivity increase (by a factor of 10 in the transition regime). The steady-state current does not change. The effect of polarity reversal of the photovoltaic signal is observed in a planar С₆₀‒substituted metalloporphine heterostructure, which is similar to the pyroelectric effect. The polarity reversal can be explained by the contribution of the trap charge and discharge current at the interface between the amorphous photosemiconductor and crystalline photosemiconductor to the resulting photoelectric current.