Copper iodide islands for FePc templating

What is it about?

Control of organic semiconductors through structural templating is an efficient route by which to tune their physical properties. Here we use highly oriented, thin copper iodide layers which are composed of isolated islands rather than continuous layers. The edges of the islands induce a structural change in iron phthalocyanine layers grown on top and change their morphology.

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Why is it important?

We show that that the combination of increased substrate temperature and the exposed edges of the copper islands is responsible for the growth of polymorphic crystals of iron phthalocyanine. Although this kind of structural control has been suggested previously our work is the first direct observation of polymorphic and morphological control.