\(p\)-Laplace thermistor modeling of electrothermal feedback in organic semiconductor devices (Q903218)

The authors deal with the problem of modelling organic light-emitting diodes. In particular they aim at the description of self-heating effects, which can lead to S-shaped current-voltage characteristics with negative differential resistance regions and can promote spatial inhomogeneities. The proposed model consists of the balance equations for the carrier density and the thermal energy in the stationary case. An important advantage of such a model with respect to the network models is that it can easily comply with variations of the device geometry and material composition. In the constitutive equation for the electric current density in the organic material, the electrical conductivity includes an Arrhenius-like temperature law and the non-Ohmic electric behavior of the material. This results in a p-Laplace-type equation for the electrostatic potential in the organic zone. The authors introduce a finite volume scheme for the system in two spatial dimensions, by decomposing the domain into a finite number of Voronoi volumes and balancing the fluxes between two adjacent volumes. The relation of this scheme with recent network models is discussed. In the study of the analytic properties of the system, the authors introduce a weak formulation, derive a priori bounds for the solutions, and prove the existence of at least one weak solution by using Schauder's fixed point theorem, the theory of monotone operators and higher regularity results for the \(p\)-Laplacian.