Work function recovery of air exposed molybdenum oxide thin films

We report substantial work function (WF) recovery of air exposed molybdenum oxide thin films with vacuum annealing. We observed a sharp reduction in the MoOx WF (from 6.8 eV to 5.6 eV) as well as a very thin layer of oxygen rich adsorbate on the MoOx film after an hour of air exposure. The WF of the exposed MoOx film started to gradually recover with increasing annealing temperature in vacuum, and the saturation in the WF recovery was observed at 450 °C with WF ∼6.4 eV. We further studied the interface formation between the annealed MoOx and copper phthalocyanine (CuPc). The highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) level of CuPc was observed to be almost pinned to the Fermi level, strongly suggesting the possibility of efficient hole injection with the vacuum annealed MoOx film.