Nanoimprint crystalithography for organic semiconductors
Organic semiconductor crystals (OSCs) offer mechanical flexibility, high carrier mobility, and tunable electronic structures, making them promising for optoelectronic and photonic applications. However, traditional lithographic techniques damage OSCs due to high-energy beams or solvents, leading to high defect densities, poor uniformity, and significant device-to-device variation. Existing methods also struggle to eliminate residual layers while forming independent, complex two-dimensional patterns. A chemical-free nanoimprint crystallography (NICL) method is introduced to overcome these challenges by balancing residual-layer-free nanoimprinting with the fabrication of independent, complex 2D patterns. In situ control of crystallization kinetics via temperature gradient adjustment yields OSC nanostructures with low defect densities and good uniformity. Patterning of various OSCs over a range of feature sizes is demonstrated. The patterned OSCs exhibit good lasing performance and low device-to-device variation (as low as 2%), indicating that NICL is a promising approach for fabricating high-performance, uniform OSC-based devices.
Authors
- Hong‐Bo Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2127-8610)
- Yan‐Hao Yu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7435-4299)
- Shun‐Xin Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-7141-8610)
- Hong Xia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1984-6669)
- Qi‐Dai Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0921-7973)
- Guan-Yao Huang
- Linhan Lin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0556-9143)
- Tairan Fu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5286-292X)
- Xiaojie Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3082-7370)
- Xinfeng Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7662-7171)
- Xin Zeng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9204-1616)
Institutions
- Beijing Institute of Technology (CN)
- Jilin University (CN)
- State Key Laboratory on Integrated Optoelectronics (CN)
- National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Zhuhai Institute of Advanced Technology (CN)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-04-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58934-9
- Citations
- 13
- Primary Topic
- Nanofabrication and Lithography Techniques
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 8.76
Funders
- Natural Science Foundation of Jilin Province
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- People's Government of Jilin Province
- Tsinghua University
- National Key Research and Development Program of China