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

技术摘要：有机半导体是一类具有重要科学和技术价值的材料，在电子和光电子器件中的应用研究十分广泛。这类材料具有可调的电子/光学性能，具有显著的物理性能，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，从而有可能实现具有成本效益的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，然后被整合到设备中。不幸的是，探索性合成的产量往往很低(导致10-3g的数量)，而且设备制造成本很高(设备105美元)。此外，目前使用的薄膜沉积技术的材料利用率往往不到0.01%，导致实验探索的速度受到一系列实际限制，并增加了对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，该系统允许以更高的(50%+)源材料利用率进行紧凑且经济的沉积。蒸汽喷射技术使用载气将源分子输送到衬底上，通过将样品带到接近准直源的位置来提高材料利用率。特别设计的保护流将源材料的流动与环绕ING屏蔽，从而允许沉积在高度局部化的惰性环境中进行，从而潜在地使设备能够在大气中打印。拟议工作的潜在影响包括大幅降低有机光电子学研究的进入成本，促进跨学科合作，使人们能够获得现有沉积技术无法获得的材料和形态，以及加快在具有科学和技术重要性的有机半导体领域的发现步伐。非技术摘要：从颜料中提取的一类相对新颖的精心设计的有机材料在科学和技术中正变得越来越重要。分子有机半导体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手段跨越广泛性质的能力，以及以低成本有效地制造未来器件(例如超薄可弯曲显示器、高效照明墙纸、塑料太阳能电池、健康监测设备等)的潜在能力。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低效而浪费外来新材料，以及当前大量加工设备和方法强加的连续和缓慢的实验性质。拟议的研究设备-Guardflow增强型有机蒸气喷墨打印机-将把材料的利用效率提高数量级，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，并加强跨传统学科边界的科学合作。这项拟议工作的好处将超越研究界，延伸到本科生和K-12教育，在有机半导体和能源转换设备研究的前沿提供大大简化和更有价值的科学技术实践经验。

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.