title: Growth and alignment of thin film organic single crystals from dewetting patterns.
abstract: Studying and understanding the conditions under which organic semiconductors can be engineered to form aligned single crystals in thin films is of primary importance owing to their unique orientation-dependent optoelectronic properties. Efforts to reach this goal by self-assembly from solution-processed films have been rewarded only with limited success. In this article we present a new method to grow single crystalline thin films via solvent annealing. We identify solvate crystal growth in combination with a specific film dewetting morphology as key to successful fabrication of single crystals. Furthermore, these 2D single crystals can align on chemically patterned substrates to minimize their interfacial energy. We explore in situ the conditions for crystal formation and alignment.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Functional Polymers, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, CH-8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jean-Nicolas
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Tisserant
authors.forename: Gaëtan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wicht
authors.forename: Ole F
authors.initials: OF
authors.lastname: Göbel
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bocek
authors.forename: Gian-Luca
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Bona
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Geiger
authors.forename: Roland
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hany
authors.forename: Raffaele
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mezzenga
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Partel
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schmid
authors.forename: Wolfhard Bernd
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Schweizer
authors.forename: Jakob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Heier