Chemical vapor deposition graphene as structural template to control interfacial molecular orientation of chloroaluminium phthalocyanine

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) graphene has been used as an effective structural template to manipulate molecular orientation of organic thin film of chloroaluminium phthalocyanine (ClAlPc) on indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode. As revealed by in-situ near-edge x-ray adsorption fine structure measurement, ClAlPc molecules on the CVD graphene modified ITO electrode adopt a well-aligned lying-down configuration with their molecular π-plane nearly parallel to the electrode surface, in contrast to the random orientation of ClAlPc molecules on the bare ITO electrode. This lying-down configuration results in an optimized stacking of the molecular π-plane perpendicular to the electrode surface and hence facilitates efficient charge transport along this direction.