Study on the growth mechanism of pentacene thin films by the analysis of island density and island size distribution

The growth mechanism of pentacene thin films on a thermally grown SiO2 on Si(100) substrate is examined in detail for a wide substrate temperature range (223–342K) by analyzing the saturated island density and island size distribution. It is found that the log plot of the saturated island density as a function of inverse substrate temperature can be well represented by two straight lines and that these two regions have different critical cluster sizes for nucleation which is independently confirmed by island size distribution analysis. It is concluded that the nucleation behavior of pentacene thin films can be explained by the diffusion-mediated growth model well known in inorganic thin-film growth.