Positioning and joining of organic single-crystalline wires.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 25814032.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms7737 and PMC identifier 4389254.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Organic single-crystal, one-dimensional materials can effectively carry charges and/or excitons due to their highly ordered molecule packing, minimized defects and eliminated grain boundaries. Controlling the alignment/position of organic single-crystal one-dimensional architectures would allow on-demand photon/electron transport, which is a prerequisite in waveguides and other optoelectronic applications. Here we report a guided physical vapour transport technique to control the growth, alignment and positioning of organic single-crystal wires with the guidance of pillar-structured substrates. Submicrometre-wide, hundreds of micrometres long, highly aligned, organic single-crystal wire arrays are generated. Furthermore, these organic single-crystal wires can be joined within controlled angles by varying the pillar geometries. Owing to the controllable growth of organic single-crystal one-dimensional architectures, we can present proof-of-principle demonstrations utilizing joined wires to allow optical waveguide through small radii of curvature (internal angles of ~90-120°). Our methodology may open a route to control the growth of organic single-crystal one-dimensional materials with potential applications in optoelectronics.