Imaging nanostructures in organic semiconductor films with scanning transmission X-ray spectro-microscopy

Thin films of organic semiconducting materials are of increasing technological importance in optoelectronic devices such as light emitting diodes (LEDs), lasers, field effect transistors (FETs) and solar cells. However, the morphology of such films is complex, often displaying three dimensional composition structure or molecular alignment effects. The structure of the polymer film incorporated into a device can strongly affect its performance characteristics, e.g. via the connectedness of polymer domains and to the device electrodes, or due to anisotropic material properties due to molecular alignment. ng transmission X-ray spectro-microscopy (STXM) has been demonstrated to be an excellent tool for the study of organic materials due to its high spatial resolution (down to about 20 nm) and strong contrast based on a variety of spectroscopic mechanisms. In particular, tuning the probing X-ray beam to resonances in the near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectra provides a mechanism for molecular-structure based contrast which is a very powerful tool for studying blends of organic components. A further advantage of STXM is that strategic use of spectroscopic information allows quantitative compositional analysis of imaged areas. Recent work at the PolLux STXM has demonstrated two new developments in the imaging of thin organic films: simultaneous surface and bulk imaging via an additional channeltron electron detector, and molecular orientation mapping via anisotropic near edge resonances.