Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-28-2019

Publication Title

RSC Advances

Volume

9

Issue

46

Pages

26942-26948

Publisher Name

The Royal Society of Chemistry

Abstract

Morphology plays a critical role in determining the properties of solid-state molecular materials, yet fluctuates wildly as these materials undergo reaction. A prototypical system, a vapor–solid Diels–Alder reaction of tetracene and pentacene thin-films, is used to observe the evolution of morphology features as the reaction transitions from surface to bulk. The initial stages of reaction display little topographical change as measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and substrates are coated with a uniform layer of product 1–2 molecules thick, as determined by energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy. The highly textured surfaces of late stage reactions are a result of aggregated products, as identified via EDX spectroscopy and polarization modulation infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (PM-IRRAS); areas of the surface in between product aggregates resemble the initial stages. The mechanism by which products aggregate into surface asperities requires the assistance of a facilitating media – in this case condensed vapor; simple thermally assisted surface diffusion was unable to generate these morphology changes. The combined data indicate that reactions of molecular solids, could be confined to the surface in the absence of condensate of the vapor phase reactant.

Comments

Author Posting © The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in RSC Advances, Volume 9, August 2019, https://doi.org/10.1039/C9RA05682C

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License

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