Issue 13, 2012

Polymer assisted solution-processing of rubrene spherulites viasolvent vapor annealing

Abstract

In this work, solution-processing rubrene spherulites were fabricated by blending an amount of polymer into rubrene and subsequent solvent vapor annealing (SVA). The content and molecular weight of the blended polymer, the annealing solvent and the solvent vapor pressure have tremendous influence on the formation of rubrene spherulites. Rubrene spherulites were produced only when a polymer with a high molecular weight was blended and annealed by good solvents of rubrene with high vapor pressures, such as CH2Cl2 and CS2. The sizes of the spherulites decreased with the reduction of the annealing solvent vapor pressure. The rubrene spherulites adopted a triclinic system with c-axis perpendicular to the substrate. The crystallizing kinetics study displayed a rather fast growth of rubrene spherulites and the crystallization of rubrene was controlled by diffusion. A competitive mechanism between the impetus of the annealing solvent vapor and the impeditive force of the polymer on the diffusion of rubrene molecules to the crystal fronts was proposed to explain the formation of rubrene spherulites.

Graphical abstract: Polymer assisted solution-processing of rubrene spherulites via solvent vapor annealing

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 Mar 2012
Accepted
13 Apr 2012
First published
18 Apr 2012

RSC Adv., 2012,2, 5779-5788

Polymer assisted solution-processing of rubrene spherulites via solvent vapor annealing

Y. Su, J. Liu, L. Zheng, Z. Ding and Y. Han, RSC Adv., 2012, 2, 5779 DOI: 10.1039/C2RA20417G

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements