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Thin azobenzene polymer films show a very unusual property, namely optically induced material transport. The underlying physics for this phenomenon has not yet been thoroughly explained. Nevertheless, this effect enables one to inscribe different patterns onto film surfaces, including one- and two-dimensional periodic structures. Typical sizes of such structures are of the order of micrometers, i.e. related to the interference pattern made by the laser used for optical excitation. In this study we have measured the mechanical properties of one- and two-dimensional gratings, with a high lateral resolution, using force-distance curves and pulse force mode of the atomic force microscope. We also report on the generation of considerably finer structures, with a typical size of 100 nm, which were inscribed onto the polymer surface by the tip of a scanning near-field optical microscope used as an optical pen. Such inscription not only opens new application possibilities but also gives deeper insight into the fundamentals physics underlying optically induced material transport
The surface structures of crystals based on aromatic oxadiazoles were investigated by AFM. The crystal structure for 2,5-di(p-tolyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole (DTO) differs from that of 2,5-di (4-methoxycarbonyl-phenyl)-1,3,4- oxadiazole (DMPO). In DMPO all molecules show parallel orientation to the surface in such a way that the surface is formed as well as by the nitrogen atoms of the heterocyclic rings and the methyl groups of the ester substituents. By contrast, the oxadiazole molecules in DTO crystals are oriented perpendicular to the crystal surface. The experimental data are interpreted by molecular modelling. It is shown that there is a difference between molecular structure of the surface, as detected by AFM, and the bulk structure determined by X-ray diffraction.
The authors present efficient all-polymer solar cells comprising two different low-bandgap naphthalenediimide (NDI)-based copolymers as acceptors and regioregular P3HT as the donor. It is shown that these naphthalene copolymers have a strong tendency to preaggregate in specific organic solvents, and that preaggregation can be completely suppressed when using suitable solvents with large and highly polarizable aromatic cores. Organic solar cells prepared from such nonaggregated polymer solutions show dramatically increased power conversion efficiencies of up to 1.4%, which is mainly due to a large increase of the short circuit current. In addition, optimized solar cells show remarkable high fill factors of up to 70%. The analysis of the blend absorbance spectra reveals a surprising anticorrelation between the degree of polymer aggregation in the solid P3HT:NDI copolymer blends and their photovoltaic performance. Scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements reveal important information on the blend morphology. It is shown that films with high degree of aggregation and low photocurrents exhibit large-scale phase-separation into rather pure donor and acceptor domains. It is proposed that, by suppressing the aggregation of NDI copolymers at the early stage of film formation, the intermixing of the donor and acceptor component is improved, thereby allowing efficient harvesting of photogenerated excitons at the donoracceptor heterojunction.
The search for alternative routes of organic thin film formation is stimulated by the outstanding properties of these films in such fields as nonlinear optics, photonic data processing and molecular electronics. The formation of highly ordered multilayer structures by thermal vacuum deposition (VD) of organic compounds is an essential step toward the application of supramolecular organic architectures in technical systems. The VD of an amphiphilic substituted 2,5- diphenylene-1,3,4-oxadiazole 1 onto silicon substrates at defined temperature was used for the formation of ultrathin films. The structural data obtained for the VD-films of oxadiazole 1 by means of X-ray reflectivity, X-ray grazing incidence diffraction and atomic force microscopy (AFM) investigations indicate the formation of well ordered oxadiazole multilayers. The structure of the VD-multilayers is compared with that of Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films and thermally treated LB-multilayers prepared from the same compound.
Inverted organic solar cells are fabricated using low-temperature-annealed ZnO film as an electron transport layer. Uniform ZnO films were prepared by spin coating a diethylzinc (DEZ) precursor solution in air, followed by annealing at 100 A degrees C. Organic solar cells prepared on these ZnO films with a 1:1 P3HT:PCBM blend as the active layer show a high power conversion efficiency of 4.03 %, which is more than 10 % higher than the PCE of solar cells comprising ZnO prepared via a high-temperature sol-gel route.
In this second paper we describe the comprehensive structure investigations on multilayers of uranyl arachidate formed by Langmuir-Blodgett deposition from subphases of different pH on solid substrates by means of a combination of infrared spectroscopy, X-ray specular reflection, ellipsometry, and scanning force microscopy, The structure of these multilayers and their stability are obviously influenced by the subphase pH. The pH range of the acid to salt conversion determined for the Langmuir films is confirmed by the infrared spectroscopic data of the multilayers. While arachidic acid films, deposited from an uranyl acetate subphase of low pH, are found to have strongly distorted rough surface, the films of uranyl structure, The influence of the counterions on the alkyl chain conformation, chain packing, reorganization probability, and stability of the multilayer is discussed.
Non-linear optical and electrical properties of polymer films obtained by dipole orientation of active units are reported. Novel polar oligomer with N-(indan-1,3-dion-2-yl)pyridinium betaine (IPB) as a side group is studied. Orientation of polar groups in oligomer thin films causes an increase of the photo-induced change of surface potential on irradiation in the region of photo-induced electron transfer (PIET) where the IPB group exhibits a reversible change of the value and sign of the dipole moment. At longer wavelengths, the value of the surface potential of the oligomer may be determined by transport of photo-generated charge carriers