Electrical Coupling of Organic/Inorganic Semiconductor Interfaces: A Comparative Study

The present work attempts to investigate the interfacial phenomenon occurring between two dissimilar materials and in particular organic and inorganic hybrid materials. Layer by layer hybrid heterostructures are fabricated by electro-deposition technique. Here, ZnO thin films are deposited using potentiostatic mode using regulated DC voltage supply fixed at-1.0 V (with respect to the reference electrode) with platinum sheet (99.99% purity) used as the counter electrode and ITO-coated glass used as a working electrode. The as obtained ZnO films are then used as substrates for deposition of organic layer. Two conducting polymers namely polyaniline (PANI) and polypyrrole (PPy) are deposited by electro-deposition method on ZnO to form ZnO/PANI and ZnO/PPy interfaces. The two interfaces are compared for their photoconducting response. These studies are further correlated with the properties that the two interfaces share.