How to characterize capacitance of organic optoelectronic devices accurately

The selection of circuit model（i.e., parallel or series model） is critical when using a capacitance–frequency and capacitance–voltage technique to probe properties of organic materials and physical processes of organic optoelectronic devices. In the present work, capacitances of ITO/Alq3/Al and ITO/CuPc/Al are characterized by series and parallel model,respectively. It is found that the large series resistance comes from the ITO electrode and results in the inapplicability of the parallel model to measuring the capacitances of organic devices at high frequencies. An equivalent circuit model with consideration of the parasitical inductance of cables is constructed to derive the capacitance, and actual capacitance–frequency spectra of Alq3 and CuPc devices are obtained. Further investigation of temperature-dependent capacitance–frequency and capacitance–voltage characteristics indicates that CuPc and Al form the Schottky contact, the density and ionization energy of impurities in CuPc are obtained. Moreover, more practical guidelines for accurate capacitance measurement are introduced instead of the impedance magnitude, which will be very helpful for the organic community to investigate capacitance-related characteristics when dealing with various organic optoelectronic devices.