Polymer Crystallization as a Tool To Pattern Hybrid Nanostructures : Growth of 12 nm ZnO Arrays in Poly(3-hexylthiophene)

Title data

Saberi Moghaddam, Reza ; Hüttner, Sven ; Vaynzof, Yana ; Ducati, Caterina ; Divitini, Giorgio ; Lohwasser, Ruth H. ; Musselman, Kevin P. ; Sepe, Alessandro ; Scherer, Maik R. J. ; Thelakkat, Mukundan ; Steiner, Ullrich ; Friend, Richard H.:
Polymer Crystallization as a Tool To Pattern Hybrid Nanostructures : Growth of 12 nm ZnO Arrays in Poly(3-hexylthiophene).
In: Nano Letters. Vol. 13 (2013) Issue 9 . - pp. 4499-4504.
ISSN 1530-6992
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/nl4024275

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Abstract in another language

Well-ordered hybrid materials with a 10 nm length scale are highly desired. We make use of the natural length scale (typically 10-15 nm) of the alternating crystalline and amorphous layers that are generally found in semicrystalline polymers to direct the growth of a semiconducting metal oxide. This approach is exemplified with the growth of ZnO within a carboxylic acid end-functionalized poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT-COOH). The metal-oxide precursor vapors diffuse into the amorphous parts of the semicrystalline polymer so that sheets of ZnO up to 0.5 mum in size can be grown. This P3HT-ZnO nanostructure further functions as a donor-acceptor photovoltaic system, with length scales appropriate for charge photogeneration.