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

技术摘要：有机半导体是一种重要的科学和技术材料，在电子和光电器件中的应用得到了广泛的研究。这类材料具有可调的电子/光学性质，其表现出显著的物理性质，并且可以作为高质量的薄膜沉积在各种基底上，包括低成本的玻璃和塑料，从而潜在地实现成本有效的大面积电子和能量转换器件。在涉及有机半导体的研究过程中，外来分子被设计和合成，随后被纳入设备。不幸的是，探索性合成产率通常较低（导致10-3 g的量），并且器件制造成本较高（设备成本为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%，导致一系列的实际限制的实验探索的速度和增加潜在的健康危害的研究人员。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印刷（G-OVJP）沉积系统，该系统允许紧凑且具有成本效益的沉积，具有更高（50%以上）的源材料利用率。蒸汽喷射技术采用载气将源分子输送到衬底上，通过使样品靠近准直源来提高材料利用率。特别设计的保护流将源材料流与周围环境屏蔽，从而允许沉积在高度局部化的惰性环境中发生，从而可能实现在大气中的设备打印。拟议工作的潜在影响包括大大降低有机光电子研究的进入成本，促进跨学科合作，使通过现有沉积技术无法获得的材料和形态学成为可能，并加快在科学和技术上重要的有机半导体领域的发现步伐。非技术摘要：一种相对新颖的由颜料衍生的精心设计的有机材料在科学和技术中变得越来越重要。针对分子有机半导体的研究的加速步伐和数量在很大程度上是由于通过化学合成跨越广泛性质的能力，以及具有成本效益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加工设备的高成本、由于所采用的实验室规模加工方法的固有低效率而造成的外来新材料的浪费以及当前加工设备和方法的连续和缓慢的实验性质的严重限制。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测试新设备，并加强跨传统学科界限的科学合作。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，通过在有机半导体和能量转换器件研究的前沿提供大大简化和更有价值的科学和技术实践经验。

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.