Molecular beam deposition of thin films of organic semiconductors

The ultra-high vacuum technique of organic molecular beam deposition (OMBD) has been recently proved to provide a very good method for growing highly controlled thin films of organic semiconductors, The approximate ordering o f a crystalline layer to a substrate, also called quasi-epitaxy, can be ach ieved with a proper choice of substrate and deposition conditions, Poly- an d oligo-thiophenes are among the most interesting and widely studied organi c semiconductors for applications in electronic and photonic devices, thank s to their high carrier mobility and large nonlinear optical response, comb ined with an exceptionally high flexibility of molecular engineering. Here, the deposition and the main properties of films of substituted sexithiophe ne molecules (6T) obtained by OMBD are discussed on the basis of X-ray diff raction and optical absorption measurements, (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.