Polyelectrolytes have been proposed as the charge injection/extraction layers for organic electronics for a long time. These layers have the advantage of orthogonal solvent processing, but suffer from large electrical resistance. In this talk, I will describe recent work that shows that greatly superior results are obtained when the polyelectrolytes get chemically doped to give what we call heavily charge-doped, self-compensated polymers. These materials can be designed through careful selection of semiconductor core, counter-ion, and spectator-ion, to achieve any desired work function between 5.8 eV to 2.4 eV, sufficient to create ohmic hole, and electron, injection contact at will, to almost any semiconductor. I will also explain how we can at the same time achieve ambient processability for even the ultra work function materials, opening an unprecedented path for ambient solution deposition.
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