Organic Heteroepitaxy Growth of High-Performance Responsive Thin Films with Solution Shearing Crystals as Templates

Organic semiconductor thin films with the ability to efficiently respond to different stimuli have recently received tremendous attention. Both efficient charge transport and suitable microstructure are required to achieve high responsive-ness. Herein, we report a heteroepitaxy strategy to fabricate highly aligned organic crystalline thin films with both high surface-to-volume ratio and excellent charge mobility. A solution-sheared one-dimensional crystalline film is first grown as a template, and the vacuum deposited active layer undergoes template-guided vertical heteroepitaxial growth, leading to the formation of the highly aligned morphology. A mobility as high as 2.9 cm(2) V-1 s(-1) with good air stability is achieved because of the highly oriented morphology and the passivation effect on surface traps by the template layer. Importantly, such structured films with high mobility exhibit excellent performance in UV light and gas detection. The strategy reported in the current study holds great promises in constructing highly responsive surfaces/interfaces.