Different growth regimes on prepatterned surfaces: Consistent evidence from simulations and experiments

Abstract

Molecule deposition on a prepatterned substrate is a recently developed technique to generate desired structures of organic molecules on surfaces via self-organization. For the case of prepatterned stripes, the time-resolved process of structure formation is studied via lattice Monte Carlo simulations. By systematic variation of the interaction strength, three distinct growth regimes can be identified: localized growth, bulge formation, and cluster formation. All three growth regimes can be recovered in the experiment when choosing appropriate organic molecules. Some key microscopic observables, reflecting the properties of the structure formation, display a non-monotonous dependence on the interaction strength.

Deposition of model chains on surfaces: Anomalous relation between flux and stability

“…e.g. [11][12][13] (2) From practical perspective one may optimize the properties of these thin film devices. This may be relevant for field effect transistors [14][15][16][17][18] , organic light-emitting diodes 19-21 , or, more generally, opto-electronics 19, [22][23][24] .…”

A kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of organic particles hetero-patterning on template-induced surface

“…If the height is too low, the difference of final aggregated morphology will be reduced. In the simulation, the height of Au squares is set to 4a, which have been proved to be appropriate in the previous work [16]. Both Au squares have a square periodicity 50a, and are shifted with 25 √ 5a in diagonal direction of the lattice.…”

“…As shown in Fig. 2, a three dimensional cubic lattice of size 100a × 100a × 2a (a being the lattice constant), built by gray balls, is employed to represent the SiO 2 substrate in the experiment [15,16]. The Au square array pattern consists of two sets of 20a × 20a and 6a × 6a Au squares, respectively.…”

“…In order to supply much more impetus for future heteropatterning experiments, the similar MC algorithm [21,22] was employed to study the theoretical basis of hetero-patterning technique, which relies on deposition experiments conducted by Wang et al [15,16]. Especially for the deposition process, the quantitative analyses for tunable physical properties are systematically examined in this paper.…”

“…By controlling the diffusion of particles between defined nuclei, not only the lateral control but also the dimension control over the out-of-plane-direction can be achieved. These experimental techniques were performed on Au patterned SiO 2 surfaces, where involved several prepatterned structures, such as Au stripe [12], Au stripe pair [13], circular Au dot [15,16] and Au square [16]. The geometries of deposited organic particles, especially for the thickness of different locations on the template surface, can be full controlled under appropriate experimental conditions.…”