Published in

American Chemical Society, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 36(130), p. 11953-11958, 2008

DOI: 10.1021/ja801337v

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Monolayer Control of Discotic Liquid Crystal by Electromigration of Dewetted Layers in Thin Film Devices

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Orange circle
Postprint: archiving restricted
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

We show that ultrathin films of a semiconductive discotic liquid crystal, viz. phthalocyanines, can be organized to form a conductive channel tens of microns long between Au electrodes with thickness control over a single monolayer. Our approach exploits the electromigration of the isotropic phase formed starting from the pretransitional region of the columnar-isotropic phase transition. Dewetted isotropic material accumulates to the negative electrode by applying a longitudinal electric field of about 1 V/mu m. Dewetting and electromigration expose an ultrathin film, a few monolayers thick, exhibiting columnar liquid crystal order. The layers of this ultrathin film melt progressively above T-c and can be individually exfoliated by electromigration, starting from the ninth down to the first monolayer. The analysis of the current flowing through the junction as a function of the temperature, together with the comparative imaging of the evolution of morphology, yields a detailed picture of the changes in the dimensionality of the conductive phthalocyanine film and allows us to extract the behavior of the order parameter. The phenomenon of electromigration opens interesting questions on the technological control of individual monolayers on device patterns.