Role of reduced pi-pi stacking in the charge transport in polyfluorene

•Role of bulky copolymer on the hole transport properties of polyfluorene thin films has been studied.•Photophysical measurement shows that the introduction of a SY in PFO effectively suppresses pi-stacking/aggregation of conjugated polymers in the solid state.•Current density decreases on blending for a given applied bias.

We investigated the effect of blending of a bulky copolymer on the hole transport properties of poly (9,9-dihexyl fluorenyl-2,7-diyl)(PFO) thin films (∼120 nm) at different temperatures by obtaining the current density-voltage measurement. The poly (phenylenevinylene) based copolymer ‘‘Super Yellow” (SY) has been used as a blending component. Such polymer blending matrix is useful as it combines the host polymer (PFO) with the guest polymer of bulky side groups where pi-pi stacking is hindered by bulky side groups. This makes polyflorene much interesting and versatile material for lighting application. It has been found that the current density decreases on blending for a given applied bias. We demonstrated that the current conduction mechanism is bulk limited. It has been analyzed by trapped charge limited currents (TCLC) with electric field. We conclude that the relatively low hole mobility in blends as compared to pristine PFO would result due to increase in the pi-pi stacking distance and disorder.

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