ACS Publications. Most Trusted. Most Cited. Most Read
CONTENT TYPES

Figure 1Loading Img

System Message

The ACS Publications site will be temporarily unavailable for planned maintenance on Friday, Oct. 15 starting at 6:00 pm ET for up to 4 hours. We apologize for this inconvenience.

Light Controls Polymorphism in Thin Films of Sexithiophene

View Author Information
Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Newtonstr. 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany
IRIS Adlershof, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Zum Großen Windkanal 6, 12489 Berlin, Germany
§ Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Notkestr. 6, 22607 Hamburg, Germany
Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
Cite this: Cryst. Growth Des. 2015, 15, 3, 1319–1324
Publication Date (Web):January 30, 2015
https://doi.org/10.1021/cg501734w
Copyright © 2015 American Chemical Society
Article Views
590
Altmetric
-
Citations
LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICS
Read OnlinePDF (2 MB)
Supporting Info (1)»

Abstract

Abstract Image

We investigate the influence of light on the growth process and resulting phase coexistence of the organic semiconductor α-sexithiophene (6T). We demonstrate that 6T thin films deposited on potassium chloride (KCl) in dark environments exhibit a bimodal growth, with phase coexistence of both low-temperature (LT) and high-temperature (HT) polymorphs. In contrast, films grown under illumination with 532 nm light at 1.5 W/cm2 exhibit an increased purity of the LT phase, while the HT phase growth is slowed down by about a factor of 4. To understand the mechanism behind this optical control, we use in situ X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, optical absorption measurements, as well as first-principles calculations for the optical absorption spectra of the HT and LT phase. We deduce that the phase purification is due to optical heating of the molecular film and lower cohesive energy of the HT phase compared to the LT phase, so that nucleation and growth of the HT phase are significantly reduced by light. On the basis of these findings, we suggest using light as a control parameter in organic molecular beam deposition to grow thin films of enhanced phase purity.

Supporting Information

ARTICLE SECTIONS
Jump To

Additional information on coexisting LT phase crystallites with flat lying molecular orientation and a short description of the quantitative phase analysis as used in the Rietveld method. This material is available free of charge via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.

Terms & Conditions

Most electronic Supporting Information files are available without a subscription to ACS Web Editions. Such files may be downloaded by article for research use (if there is a public use license linked to the relevant article, that license may permit other uses). Permission may be obtained from ACS for other uses through requests via the RightsLink permission system: http://pubs.acs.org/page/copyright/permissions.html.

Cited By


This article is cited by 23 publications.

  1. T. L. Derrien, A. E. Lauritzen, P. Kaienburg, J. F. M. Hardigree, C. Nicklin, M. Riede. In Situ Observations of the Growth Mode of Vacuum-Deposited α-Sexithiophene. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 2020, 124 (22) , 11863-11869. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.0c00447
  2. Paul Beyer, Duc Pham, Clea Peter, Norbert Koch, Eduard Meister, Wolfgang Brütting, Lutz Grubert, Stefan Hecht, Dmitrii Nabok, Caterina Cocchi, Claudia Draxl, Andreas Opitz. State-of-Matter-Dependent Charge-Transfer Interactions between Planar Molecules for Doping Applications. Chemistry of Materials 2019, 31 (4) , 1237-1249. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b01447
  3. Yoriko Sonoda, Norimitsu Tohnai, Ying Zhou, Yukihiro Shimoi, Reiko Azumi. Structures and Fluorescence Properties for the Crystals, Powders, and Thin Films of Dithienylhexatrienes: Effects of Positional Isomerism. Crystal Growth & Design 2018, 18 (11) , 6477-6487. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.cgd.8b00509
  4. Hiromasa Niinomi, Teruki Sugiyama, Katsuhiko Miyamoto, and Takashige Omatsu . “Freezing” of NaClO3 Metastable Crystalline State by Optical Trapping in Unsaturated Microdroplet. Crystal Growth & Design 2018, 18 (2) , 734-741. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.cgd.7b01116
  5. Tetsuya Taima, Md. Shahiduzzaman, Takaaki Ishizeki, Kohei Yamamoto, Makoto Karakawa, Takayuki Kuwabara, and Kohshin Takahashi . Sexithiophene-Based Photovoltaic Cells with High Light Absorption Coefficient via Crystalline Polymorph Control. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 2017, 121 (36) , 19699-19704. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b07953
  6. Kenji Kotsuki, Seiji Obata, and Koichiro Saiki . Self-Aligned Growth of Organic Semiconductor Single Crystals by Electric Field. Langmuir 2016, 32 (2) , 644-649. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.5b03975
  7. Jannis Krumland, Ana Maria Valencia, Caterina Cocchi. Exploring organic semiconductors in solution: the effects of solvation, alkylization, and doping. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 2021, 23 (8) , 4841-4855. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0CP06085B
  8. Zhi-Ping Fan, Hao-Li Zhang. Crystal Polymorph Control for High-Performance Organic Field-Effect Transistors. 2020,,https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91905
  9. Ana M. Valencia, Michele Guerrini, Caterina Cocchi. Ab initio modelling of local interfaces in doped organic semiconductors. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 2020, 22 (6) , 3527-3538. https://doi.org/10.1039/C9CP06655A
  10. Min‐Woo Kim, Sooncheol Kwon, Jehan Kim, Changhoon Lee, Ina Park, Ji Hoon Shim, Il‐Seok Jeong, Yong‐Ryun Jo, Byoungwook Park, Joo‐Hyung Lee, Kwanghee Lee, Bong‐Joong Kim. Reversible Polymorphic Transition and Hysteresis‐Driven Phase Selectivity in Single‐Crystalline C8‐BTBT Rods. Small 2020, 16 (3) , 1906109. https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.201906109
  11. H. Abd El-Khalek, Mohamed Abd- El Salam, Fatma M. Amin. Effect of thermal annealing and aging time on optical properties of alpha-sexithiophene thin films. Optical Materials 2019, 95 , 109234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optmat.2019.109234
  12. H. Abd El-Khalek, Mohamed Abd- El Salam, Fatma M. Amin. Fabrication and characterization of dual-band organic/inorganic photodetector for optoelectronic applications. Current Applied Physics 2019, 19 (5) , 629-638. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cap.2019.02.017
  13. Caterina Cocchi, Tobias Breuer, Gregor Witte, Claudia Draxl. Polarized absorbance and Davydov splitting in bulk and thin-film pentacene polymorphs. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 2018, 20 (47) , 29724-29736. https://doi.org/10.1039/C8CP06384B
  14. Thorsten Wagner, Daniel Roman Fritz, Zdena Rudolfová, Peter Zeppenfeld. Role of step edges on the structure formation of α-6T on Ag(441). Surface Science 2018, 667 , 17-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.susc.2017.09.008
  15. Benjamin C. Hoffman, Terry Mcafee, Sara Pazoki, Aubrey Apperson, Brendan T. O'Connor, Daniel B. Dougherty. Temperature controlled interlayer disorder in ultrathin films of α-sexithiophene. Thin Solid Films 2017, 642 , 182-187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2017.09.011
  16. Linus Pithan, Paul Beyer, Laura Bogula, Anton Zykov, Peter Schäfer, Jonathan Rawle, Chris Nicklin, Andreas Opitz, Stefan Kowarik. Direct Photoalignment and Optical Patterning of Molecular Thin Films. Advanced Materials 2017, 29 (6) , 1604382. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201604382
  17. Stefan Kowarik. Thin film growth studies using time-resolved x-ray scattering. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 2017, 29 (4) , 043003. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-648X/29/4/043003
  18. Christopher Lorch, Katharina Broch, Valentina Belova, Giuliano Duva, Alexander Hinderhofer, Alexander Gerlach, Maciej Jankowski, Frank Schreiber. Growth and annealing kinetics of α-sexithiophene and fullerene C 60 mixed films. Journal of Applied Crystallography 2016, 49 (4) , 1266-1275. https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576716009936
  19. Hieu T. Nguyen-Truong. Low-energy electron inelastic mean free path in materials. Applied Physics Letters 2016, 108 (17) , 172901. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4948248
  20. Christian Vorwerk, Caterina Cocchi, Claudia Draxl. LayerOptics: Microscopic modeling of optical coefficients in layered materials. Computer Physics Communications 2016, 201 , 119-125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2016.01.004
  21. Hyunjoong Chung, Ying Diao. Polymorphism as an emerging design strategy for high performance organic electronics. Journal of Materials Chemistry C 2016, 4 (18) , 3915-3933. https://doi.org/10.1039/C5TC04390E
  22. Bernhard Klett, Caterina Cocchi, Linus Pithan, Stefan Kowarik, Claudia Draxl. Polymorphism in α-sexithiophene crystals: relative stability and transition path. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 2016, 18 (21) , 14603-14609. https://doi.org/10.1039/C6CP01405D
  23. Sebastian Bommel, Holger Spranger, C. Weber, N. Kleppmann, Stephan V. Roth, S. H. L. Klapp, Stefan Kowarik. Thermally-activated post-growth dewetting of fullerene C 60 on mica. physica status solidi (RRL) - Rapid Research Letters 2015, 9 (11) , 646-651. https://doi.org/10.1002/pssr.201510258

Pair your accounts.

Export articles to Mendeley

Get article recommendations from ACS based on references in your Mendeley library.

Pair your accounts.

Export articles to Mendeley

Get article recommendations from ACS based on references in your Mendeley library.

You’ve supercharged your research process with ACS and Mendeley!

STEP 1:
Click to create an ACS ID

Please note: If you switch to a different device, you may be asked to login again with only your ACS ID.

Please note: If you switch to a different device, you may be asked to login again with only your ACS ID.

Please note: If you switch to a different device, you may be asked to login again with only your ACS ID.

MENDELEY PAIRING EXPIRED
Your Mendeley pairing has expired. Please reconnect

This website uses cookies to improve your user experience. By continuing to use the site, you are accepting our use of cookies. Read the ACS privacy policy.

CONTINUE