Motivation:

Organic thin films are prevalent in electronic devices, including thin film transistors and light emitting diodes (LEDs). Despite this, there is much unknown about interfacial interactions between the organic thin films and the foreign substrates, and there is a need to establish connections between the physical and electronic properties.

Methods and techniques:

We are interested in whether the relationship between growth and function can be influenced by manipulating the state of the incident molecule and the state of the surface.

At the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), we employ synchrotron X-ray radiation to monitor the growth of organic semiconductor thin films in situ and in real time. X-ray scattering at the anti-Bragg condition is measured and the data is modeled to gain insight into growth processes such as interlayer transport.

We use self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) to modify surfaces and then observe how they affect thin film growth.