Molecular Beam Epitaxy Growth of Iron Phthalocyanine Nanostructures

FePc films of different thickness have been deposited by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) as a function of substrate temperature (25-300 deg. C) and deposition rate (0.02-0.07 nm/s). The morphology of a 60 nm alpha-phase film has been tuned from nanobrush (nearly parallel nanorods aligned normal to the substrate plane) to nanoweb (nanowires forming a web-like structure in the plane of the substrate) by changing the deposition rate from 0.02 to 0.07 nm/s. We propose growth mechanisms of nanoweb and nanobrush morphology based on the van der Waals (vdW) epitaxy. For air exposed FePc films I-V hysteresis was observed at 300 K and it is attributed to surface traps created by chemisorbed oxygen.