Physical origin of nonlinear transport in organic semiconductor at high carrier densities

The charge transport in some organic semiconductors exhibits nonlinear properties and further universal power-law scaling with both bias and temperature. The physical origin of this behavior is investigated here by using variable-range hopping theory. The results indicate that this nonlinear behavior can be well explained by variable-range hopping theory. In the high temperature regime, charge transport is thermally activated. However, for the low temperature case, field-assisted tunneling will be dominant, which is responsible for the nonlinear characteristics observed by experiment. The comparison between the theoretical calculation and recent experimental data is also presented.