Matrix-Assisted Pulsed Laser Evaporation of polythiophene films

Organic poly-conjugated systems have recently attracted great interest as semi-conducting materials and, among poly-conjugated systems, substituted polythiophenes have given relevant results in PVs applications. The high conductivity required is affected by both the polymer conjugation length and the chain packing. Thus, highly region-regular polymers must be used and deposited as thin films with some technique which favours orientation and crystallization of the polymer chains. A deposition technique often used for its flexibility and high control over film characteristics is Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD). In PLD, largely applied for inorganic thin film deposition, the material is ablated from a solid target by a focused pulsed laser beam and is deposited on the substrate placed at a small distance. Although some addition polymers have been successfully deposited the deposition seems to proceed via a 'depolymerization-monomer ablation-repolymerization' mechanism, this is clearly not possible in general for organic molecules and condensation polymers. On the contrary MAPLE (Matrix-Assisted Pulsed Laser Evaporation) is a recently developed PLD based thin film deposition technique, particularly well suited for organic/polymer thin film deposition. Up to now MAPLE depositions have been carried out mainly by means of modified PLD systems, using excimer lasers operating in UV, but use of less energetic radiations can minimize the photochemical decomposition of the polymer molecules. We have used a deposition system explicitly designed for MAPLE technique connected to a Q-switched Ng:YAG pulsed laser which can be operated at different wavelength ranging from IR to UV in order to evaluate the effect of the choice of laser radiation on the deposition of POOPT thin films. From DRIFT-IR spectroscopy, all deposited films showed structural order; it was determined that the better wavelength for POOPT deposition is 532 nm. With this value of the laser wavelength the local chemical structure of the polymer was retained and the film appeared more homogeneous