Functionalized C60  and C70  fullerenes are employed as active components in organic electronic devices and have spurred interest in improved methods for controlled materials deposition from the liquid state. The structure of C 60  and C 70 -PCBM-electrode interfaces is expected to strongly impact charge transfer processes in photovoltaic devices. We report a molecularly detailed study of the growth of C 60  and C 70 -PCBM on Au (111) and Ag (111) metal surfaces using UHV-STM. Thin films  are  grown  on  atomically  clean  substrates  with  a  custom-build  pulsed  aerosol  molecular beam deposition source. The directed deposition of aerosols offers materials versatility, low cost, large-scale manufacturing capacity and  advantages to the  environment through reduced. Structure is tracked from the sub-monolayer to multilayer regime under thermally driven conditions. C 60 and C 70 -PCBM films on the (23 � v3 )-Au (111) surface undergo transformation from disordered films  to  semicrystalline  films  with  islands  of  hcp-  packed  fullerenes  upon  annealing  to  250 ? . Bilayer C 70 -PCBM films undergo thermal transformation, with 2-D hcp-packed domains evident for  both  the  2 nd -layer  and  1 st -layer  fullerenes.  We  propose  structural  models  with hydrogen-bonding interactions between the fullerenes, accounting for the observed hcp packing and  registry-shift  between  1 st -layer  and  2 nd -layer  C 70 -PCBM  molecules.  Solvation  effects  in nanoparticle adsorption and ordering are additionally explored for these PCBM model systems. This work was supported by the NSF-Division of Chemistry (MSN) under CHE-CHE1310380.

Carbon nanostructure adsorption, ordering, and displacement at metal surfaces

247th National Meeting (2014)

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