Tuning the carrier injection barrier of hybrid metal–organic interfaces on rare earth-gold surface compounds

Abstract

Magnetic hybrid metal–organic interfaces possess a great potential in areas such as organic spintronics and quantum information processing. However, tuning their carrier injection barriers on-demand is fundamental for the implementation in technological devices. We have prepared hybrid metal–organic interfaces by the adsorption of copper phthalocyanine CuPc on REAu2 surfaces (RE = Gd, Ho and Yb) and studied their growth, electrostatics and electronic structure. CuPc exhibits a long-range commensurability and a vacuum level pinning of the molecular energy levels. We observe a significant effect of the RE valence of the substrate on the carrier injection barrier of the hybrid metal–organic interface. CuPc adsorbed on trivalent RE-based surfaces (HoAu2 and GdAu2) exhibits molecular level energies that may allow injection carriers significantly closer to an ambipolar injection behavior than in the divalent case (YbAu2).