TY - JOUR
T1 - Crystal growth of small-molecule organic semiconductors with nucleation additive
AU - He, Zhengran
AU - Zhang, Ziyang
AU - Asare-Yeboah, Kyeiwaa
AU - Bi, Sheng
AU - Chen, Jihua
AU - Li, Dawen
N1 - Funding Information:
D.L. and Z.H. acknowledge partial support provided from the University of Alabama. S. Bi would like to thank Science and Technology Project of Liaoning Province (20180540006). A part of this research was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020
PY - 2021/1
Y1 - 2021/1
N2 - In this study, we employ a nucleation additive 4-octylbenzoic acid (OBA) with an optimized solvent evaporation method to regulate crystal orientation and grain width of small-molecule organic semiconductors. When 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl) pentacene (TIPS pentacene) was utilized as a benchmark material to mix with the additive, a self-assembled OBA interfacial layer was formed and promoted uniform deposition of nucleation seeds. As a result, the TIPS pentacene/OBA blend crystalline film exhibited crystal alignment in long range order, attributing to a 11-fold reduction of the crystal misorientation angle and a 4-fold increase of the grain width. We further discussed the important correlation between the effective hole mobility, grain boundaries, grain width and length, and nucleation sites. Organic thin film transistors were fabricated to test charge transport, yielding a hole mobility of up to 0.17 cm2/V. This work provides a new pathway to modulate the nucleation and crystallization events of organic semiconductors, and can potentially be applied to optimize the thin film morphology and electrical performance of organic semiconducting materials in general.
AB - In this study, we employ a nucleation additive 4-octylbenzoic acid (OBA) with an optimized solvent evaporation method to regulate crystal orientation and grain width of small-molecule organic semiconductors. When 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl) pentacene (TIPS pentacene) was utilized as a benchmark material to mix with the additive, a self-assembled OBA interfacial layer was formed and promoted uniform deposition of nucleation seeds. As a result, the TIPS pentacene/OBA blend crystalline film exhibited crystal alignment in long range order, attributing to a 11-fold reduction of the crystal misorientation angle and a 4-fold increase of the grain width. We further discussed the important correlation between the effective hole mobility, grain boundaries, grain width and length, and nucleation sites. Organic thin film transistors were fabricated to test charge transport, yielding a hole mobility of up to 0.17 cm2/V. This work provides a new pathway to modulate the nucleation and crystallization events of organic semiconductors, and can potentially be applied to optimize the thin film morphology and electrical performance of organic semiconducting materials in general.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cap.2020.10.014
DO - 10.1016/j.cap.2020.10.014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85094942060
SN - 1567-1739
VL - 21
SP - 107
EP - 115
JO - Current Applied Physics
JF - Current Applied Physics
ER -