Molecular-orientation-induced rapid roughening and morphology transition in organic semiconductor thin-film growth

We study the roughening process and morphology transition of organic semiconductor thin film induced by molecular orientation in the model of molecular semiconductor copper hexadecafluorophthalocyanine (F16CuPc) using both experiment and simulation. The growth behaviour of F16CuPc thin film with the thickness, D, on SiO2 substrate takes on two processes divided by a critical thickness: (1) D ≤ 40 nm, F16CuPc thin films are composed of uniform caterpillar-like crystals. The kinetic roughening is confirmed during this growth, which is successfully analyzed by Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) model with scaling exponents α = 0.71 ± 0.12, β = 0.36 ± 0.03, and 1/z = 0.39 ± 0.12; (2) D > 40 nm, nanobelt crystals are formed gradually on the caterpillar-like crystal surface and the film growth shows anomalous growth behaviour. These new growth behaviours with two processes result from the gradual change of molecular orientation and the formation of grain boundaries, which conversely induce new molecular orientation, rapid roughening process, and the formation of nanobelt crystals.