IMR: Development of an Atmospheric Vapor Jet Deposition Apparatus for Organic Optoelectronic Materials Research and Education

技术摘要：有机半导体是一类科学和技术上重要的材料，在电子和光电子器件中的应用得到了广泛的研究。这类材料提供了可调谐的电子/光学特性，表现出显著的物理特性，并且可以作为高质量的薄膜沉积在各种衬底上，包括低成本的玻璃和塑料，具有潜在的成本效益，大面积电子和能量转换设备。在涉及有机半导体的研究过程中，外来分子被设计和合成，随后被整合到器件中。不幸的是，探索性合成产量通常很低（导致10-3克的数量），并且设备制造成本很高（设备105美元）。此外，目前采用的薄膜沉积技术的材料利用率往往低于0.01%，导致实验探索的步伐受到一系列实际限制，并增加了研究人员的潜在健康危害。为了解决这些问题，我们将开发一种guardflow增强型有机蒸汽喷射打印（G-OVJP）沉积系统，该系统可以实现紧凑且具有成本效益的沉积，并且源材料利用率更高（50%以上）。蒸汽喷射技术采用载气将源分子输送到基板上，通过使样品靠近准直源来提高材料利用率。特殊设计的保护流将源材料的流与周围环境隔离开来，从而允许沉积在高度局部的惰性环境中进行，从而有可能使设备在大气中打印。拟议工作的潜在影响包括大大降低有机op-to - electronics研究的入门成本，促进跨学科合作，使现有沉积技术无法获得的材料和形态，以及加速科学和技术上重要的有机半导体领域的发现步伐。摘要：一类相对新颖的由颜料衍生而来的经过精心设计的有机材料在科学技术领域正变得越来越重要。分子有机半导体研究的步伐和数量的加快，在很大程度上是由于通过化学合成的手段能够跨越广泛的特性，以及经济有效地制造未来设备的潜在能力（例如超薄可弯曲显示器、高效照明壁纸、塑料太阳能电池、健康监测设备等）。不幸的是，目前的研究活动受到以下因素的严重限制：加工设备的高成本；由于所采用的实验室规模的加工方法固有的效率低下而浪费了外来的新材料；以及目前的加工设备和方法所造成的连续和缓慢的实验性质。拟议的研究设备- guardflow增强型有机蒸汽喷射打印机-将提高材料利用效率的数量级，释放实验室空间，降低资本成本，提高安全性，加快实验室规模的制造和新设备的测试，并加强跨越传统学科界限的科学合作。通过在有机半导体和能量转换设备的前沿研究中提供大大简化和更有益的科学和技术实践经验，这项拟议工作的好处将超越研究界，扩展到本科和K-12教育。

Technical Abstract: Organic semiconductors comprise a scientifically and technologically important class of materials, in-tensively researched for applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices. This class of materials of-fers tunable electronic/optical properties which exhibit remarkable physical properties, and can be depos-ited as high quality thin films on a variety of substrates, including low cost glass and plastic, potentially enabling cost-effective, large-area electronics and energy conversion devices. In the course of research involving organic semiconductors, exotic molecules are engineered and synthesized, and subsequently incorporated into devices. Unfortunately, exploratory synthesis yields are often low (resulting in 10-3 g quantities), and costs of device fabrication are high ( $105 for equipment). Moreover, the materials utili-zation efficiency of currently employed thin-film deposition techniques is often less than 0.01%, leading to a range of practical limitations on the pace of experimental exploration and increasing potential health hazards to the researchers. To address these problems, we will develop a Guardflow-enhanced Organic Vapor Jet Printing (G-OVJP) deposition system that allows compact and cost-effective deposition with much higher (50%+) source material utilization. The vapor jet technique employs a carrier gas to deliver source molecules onto a substrate, increasing materials utilization by bringing the sample into close proximity of a collimated source. The specially designed guard flow shields the stream of the source material from the surround-ings, thereby allowing the deposition to take place in a highly localized inert environment, potentially enabling device printing in atmosphere. The potential impact of the proposed work includes greatly reducing the cost-of-entry for organic op-toelectronics research, facilitating cross-disciplinary collaborations, enabling access to materials and mor-phologies not available via existing deposition techniques, and an accelerated pace of discovery in the realm of scientifically and technologically important organic semiconductors. Non-technical Abstract: A relatively novel class of carefully engineered organic materials derived from pigments is becoming increasingly important in science and technology. The accelerated pace and volume of research directed towards molecular organic semiconductors is motivated in large part by the ability to span a vast range of properties by means of chemical synthesis, and by the potential ability to cost-effectively fabricate futur-istic devices (e.g. ultra-thin bendable displays, efficient lighting wallpaper, plastic solar cells, health-monitoring devices, and others). Unfortunately, present research activities are severely limited by the high costs of processing equip-ment, waste of exotic new materials due to inherent inefficiencies of the laboratory-scale processing methods employed, and the serial and slow nature of experimentation imposed by the current crop of processing equipment and methods. The proposed research apparatus - Guardflow-enhanced Organic Vapor Jet Printer - will increase ma-terials utilization efficiency by orders of magnitude, free up laboratory space, reduce capital costs, im-prove safety, speed up laboratory-scale fabrication and testing of novel devices, and enhance scientific collaborations across traditional disciplinary boundaries. The benefits of this proposed work will extend beyond the research community, to undergraduate and K-12 education, by providing greatly simplified and more rewarding hands-on experiences in science and technology at the cutting edge of research in organic semiconductors and energy conversion devices.