Analysis of island shape evolution from diffuse x-ray scattering/GISAXS of organic thin films and implications for growth

Understanding the growth of organic semi-conducting molecules with shape anisotropy is of high relevance to the processing of optoelectronic devices. This work provides insight into the growth of thin films of the prototypical rodlike organic semiconductor diindenoperylene on a microscopic level, by analyzing in detail the film morphology. We model our data, which were obtained by high-resolution grazing incidence small angle x-ray scattering (GISAXS), using a theoretical description from small angle scattering theory derived for simple liquids. Based on form factor calculations for different object types we determine how the island shapes change in the respective layers [1]. Atomic force microscopy measurements approve our findings