Summary
This paper presents a critical discussion of epitaxy when applied to organic molecular materials. Indeed, the possible growth of ordered layers, with known and controlled structural relationships with the substrates, is fundamental both for a deep comprehension of the material properties themselves and for future device applications. This is well documented for inorganics, but it is valid also for organic materials, whose interest for organic molecular electronics is increasing more and more. Nonetheless, a complete and fully satisfactory description of organic epitaxy is still lacking. The commonly accepted criteria for identifying epitaxial growth of overlayers on solid substrates were elaborated for inorganic materials and therefore match with the characteristics of these materials (atom-based materials, strong interactions and chemical bonds, lattice parameters of few Å). When dealing with organics, the same criteria reveal serious limits, as indeed could be expected, given the peculiarities of these materials, in particular the rather weak intermolecular interactions holding together the solid. After reviewing the basic properties of molecular solids, the attempts to widen the known concept of inorganic epitaxy to organics are reported. Then, the techniques used to detect and study organic epitaxy are illustrated and the discussion of particularly relevant case studies proposed, which permits to demonstrate how additional criteria related to the intermolecular interactions at the film/substrate interface and to the molecular arrangement at the surface can better fit with the behavior of organic materials.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Silinsh E. A. and Capek V., Organic Molecular Crystals (AIP Press, New York) 1994.
Forrest S. R., Chem. Rev., 97 (1997) 1793.
Pope M. and Swenberg C. E., Electronic Processes in Organic Crstals and Polymers, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press, Oxford) 1999.
Nalwa H. S. (Editor), Handbook of Organic Conductive Molecules and Polymers (John Wiley and Sons, Chichester) 1997.
Farchioni R. and Grosso G. (Editors), Organic Electronic Materials (Springer, Heidelberg) 2001.
Agranovich V. M. and Bassani F. (Editors), Electronic Excitations in Organic Based Nanostructures (Academic Press, Orlando) 2003.
Brutting W. (Editor), Physics of Organic Semiconductors (Wiley-VCH, Weinheim) 2005.
Schwoerer M. and Wolf H. C., Organic Molecular Solids (Wiley-VCH, Weinheim) 2007.
Organic electronics association, web site: www.vdma.org (look for “roadmap”).
Fraxedas J., Adv. Mater., 14 (2002) 1603.
Witte G. and Woll C., J. Mater. Res., 19 (2004) 1889.
Schreiber F., Phys. Status Solidi (a), 201 (2004) 1037.
Schnack J., Lect. Notes Phys., 645 (2004) 155; Blundell S. J., Lect. Notes Phys., 697 (2006) 345.
Siegrist T., Kloc C., Laudise R. A., Katz H. E. and Haddon R. C., Adv. Mater., 10 (1998) 379.
Horowitz G., J. Mater. Res., 19 (2004) 1946.
Hoppe H. and Sariciftci N. S., J. Mater. Res., 19 (2004) 1924.
Gledhill S. E., Scott B. and Gregg B. A., J. Mater. Res., 20 (2005) 3167.
Davydov A. S., Theory of Molecular Excitons (Plenum Press, New York) 1971.
Wittmann J. C. and Lotz B., Prog. Polym. Sci., 15 (1990) 909.
Koma A., Prog. Crystal Growth Charact., 30 (1995) 129.
Hooks D. E., Fritz T. and Ward M. D., Adv. Mater., 13 (2001) 1; 227.
Mannsfeld S. C. B. and Fritz T., Phys. Rev. B, 69 (2004) 75416; 71 (2005) 23405.
Mannsfeld S. C. B., Leo K. and Fritz T., Phys. Rev. Lett., 94 (2005) 056104.
Mannsfeld S. C. B. and Fritz T., Mod. Phys. Lett. B, 20 (2006) 585.
Campione M., Sassella A., Moret M., Papagni A., Trabattoni S., Resel R., Lengyel O., Marcon V. and Raos G., J. Am.. Chem. Soc., 128 (2006) 13378.
Campione M., Caprioli S., Moret M. and Sassella A., J. Phys. Chem. C, 111 (2007) 12471.
Campione M., Raimondo L. and Sassella A., J. Phys. Chem. C, 111 (2007) 19009.
Sassella A., Campione M., Papagni A., Goletti C., Bussetti G., Chiaradia P., Marcon V. and Raos G., Chem.. Phys., 325 (2006) 193.
Marcon V., Raos G., Campione M. and Sassella A., Crystal Growth & Design, 6 (2006) 1826.
Herman M. A., Richter W. and Sitter H., Epitaxy (Springer-Verlag, Berlin) 2004.
Miglio L. and Sassella A., in Encyclopedia of Condensed Matter Physics, edited by Bassani F., Liedl G. and Wyder P. (Academic Press-Elsevier, Amsterdam) 2005, p. 157.
van Nostrand J. E., Jay Chey S. and Cahill D. G., Phys. Rev. B, 57 (1998) 12536.
Bratland K. A., Foo Y. L., Soares Y. A. N. T., Spila T., Desjardins P. and Greene J. E., Phys. Rev. B, 67 (2003) 125322.
Lunt L. L., Benziger J. B. and Forrest S. R., Adv. Mater, 19 (2007) 4229.
Koma A., Surf. Sci., 267 (1992) 29.
So F. F. and Forrest S. R., Phys. Rev. Lett., 66 (1991) 2649.
Forrest S. R. and Burrows P. E., Supramol. Sci., 4 (1997) 127.
Zhang X. and Forrest S. R., Phys. Rev. Lett., 71 (1993) 2765.
Liu D. J., Selinger R. L. B. and Weeks J. D., J. Chem. Phys., 105 (1996) 4751.
Dietrich T., Schlesser R., Erler B., Kundig A., Sitar Z. and Gunter P., J. Crystal Growth, 172 (1997) 473.
Hoshino A., Isoda S., Kurata H. and Kobayashi T., J. Appl. Phys., 76 (1994) 4113; J. Crystal Growth, 146 (1995) 636; Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., 34 (1995) 3858.
Hiller A. C. and Ward M. D., Phys. Rev. B, 54 (1996) 14037.
Haber T., Campione M., Moret M., Thierry A., Sassella A. and Resel R., Physica E (2008) doi:10.1016/j.physe.2008.06.014
Goletti C., Bussetti G., Chiaradia P., Sassella A. and Borghesi A., Appl. Phys. Lett., 83 (2003) 4146; J. Phys.: Condens. Matter., 16 (2004) S4393.
Weightman P., Martin D. S., Cole R. J. and Farrel T., Rep. Prog. Phys., 68 (2005) 1251.
Proehl H., Dienel T., Nitsche R. and Fritz T., Phys. Rev. Lett., 93 (2004) 097403.
Thierry A., Wittmann J. C., Lotz B., da Costa V., Le Moigne J., Campione M., Borghesi A., Sassella A., Plank L. and Resel R., Org. Electron., 5 (2004) 7.
Campione M., Borghesi A., Moret M., Sassella A., Loτz B. and Thierry A., Org. Electron., 5 (2004) 141.
Moret M., Campione M., Borghesi A., Miozzo L., Sassella A., Trabattoni S., Loτz B. and Thierry A., J. Mater. Chem., 15 (2005) 2444.
Sassella A., Baldi I., Borghesi A., Campione M., Miozzo L., Moret M., Papagni A., Salerno A., Tavazzi B. and Trabattoni S., J. Phys. Chem. B, 109 (2005) 5150.
Brock C. P. and Dunitz J. D., Acta Crystallogr. B, 46 (1990) 795.
Born M. and Wolf E., Principles of Optics (Pergamon Press, Oxford) 1980.
Sassella A., Borghesi A., Spearman P. and Tavazzi S., Eur. Phys. J. B, 28 (2002) 385.
Meinardi F., Cerminara M., Sassella A., Bonifacio R. and Tubino R., Phys. Rev. Lett., 91 (2003) 247401.
Tavazzi S., Borghesi A., Campione M., Laicini M., Trabattoni S. and Spearman P., J. Chem.. Phys., 120 (2004) 7136.
Laicini M., Spearman P., Tavazzi S. and Borghesi A., Phys. Rev. B, 71 (2005) 45212.
Sassella A., Campione M., Moret M., Borghesi A., Goletti C., Bussetti G. and Chiaradia P., Phys. Rev. B, 71 (2005) 201311(R).
Sassella A., Borghesi A., Campione M., Tavazzi S., Goletti C., Bussetti G. and Chiaradia P., Appl. Phys. Lett., 89 (2006) 261905.
Horowitz G., Bachet B., Yassar A., Lang P., Demanze F., Fave J.-L. and Garnier F., Chem.. Mater., 7 (1995) 1337.
Koller G., Berkebile S., Krenn J., Tzvetkov G., Hlawacek G., Lengyel O., Netzer F. P., Teichert C., Resel R. and Ramsey M. G., Adv. Mater., 16 (2004) 2159.
Haber T., Oehzelt M., Andreev A., Thierry A., Sitter H., Smilgies D.-M., Schaffer B., Grogger W. and Resel R. J., Nanosci. Nanotechnol., 6 (2006) 698.
Siegrist T., Fleming R. M., Haddon R. C., Laudise R. A., Lovinger A. J., Katz H. E., Bridenbaugh P. D. and Davis D., J. Mater. Res., 10 (1995) 2170.
Eremina T. A., Furmanova N. G., Malakhova L. F., Okhrimenko T. M. and Kuznetsov V. A., Crystallogr. Rep., 38 (1993) 554.
Borc J. and Sangwal K., Surf. Sci., 1 (2004) 555.
Campione M., Borghesi A., Laicini M., Sassella A., Goletti C., Bussetti G. and Chiaradia P., J. Chem.. Phys., 127 (2007) 244703.
Campione M., Sassella A., Moret M., Marcon V. and Raos G., J. Phys. Chem. B, 109 (2005) 7859.
Sassella A., Besana D., Borghesi A., Campione M., Tavazzi S., Loτz B. and Thierry A., Synth. Met., 138 (2003) 125.
Holmes D., Kumaraswamy S., Matzger A. J. and Vollhardt K. P. C., Chem. Eur. J., 5 (1999) 3399.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sassella, A., Campione, M. & Borghesi, A. Organic epitaxy. Riv. Nuovo Cim. 31, 457–490 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1393/ncr/i2008-10035-y
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1393/ncr/i2008-10035-y