Organic magnetoresistance from deep traps

Abstract

We predict that singly occupied carrier traps, produced by electrical stress or irradiation within organic semiconductors, can cause spin blockades and the large room-temperature magnetoresistance known as organic magnetoresistance. The blockade occurs because many singly occupied traps can only become as doubly occupied in a spin-singlet configuration. Magnetic-field effects on spin mixing during transport dramatically modify the effects of this blockade and produce magnetoresistance. We calculate the quantitative effects of these traps on organic magnetoresistance from percolation theory and find a dramatic nonlinear dependence of the saturated magnetoresistance on trap density, leading to values ∼20%, within the theory?s range of validity. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.