Towards controlled bottom-up architectures in organic heterostructures

The authors report a study on the growth of organic heterostructures based on di-indenoperylene (DIP) (p-type conduction) deposited on top of F16CuPc (n-type conduction) by real-time x-ray scattering and atomic force microscopy. Above a threshold temperature of 90°C, the formation of highly crystalline DIP islands takes place via Stranski-Krastanov growth. The temperature dependence of the growth behavior can be exploited to control the resulting morphologies, ranging from well ordered layered heterostructures to the self-organization of highly crystalline DIP islands with tunable size. This self-organization scenario of organic ambipolar nanostructures carries the potential for bottom-up growth of organic architectures for solar cell structures.