2012, Fischer, Axel, Pahner, Paul, Lüssem, Björn, Scholz, Reinhard, Koprucki, Thomas, Gärtner, Klaus, Glitzky, Annegret

We demonstrate electric bistability induced by the positive feedback of self-heating onto the thermally activated conductivity in a two-terminal device based on the organic semiconductor C60. The central undoped layer with a thickness of 200 nm is embedded between thinner n-doped layers adjacent to the contacts minimizing injection barriers. The observed current-voltage characteristics follow the general theory for thermistors described by an Arrhenius-like conductivity law. Our findings including hysteresis phenomena are of general relevance for the entire material class since most organic semiconductors can be described by a thermally activated conductivity.