Heteroepitaxial growth of self-assembled highly ordered para-sexiphenyl films: A crystallographic study

Abstract
X-ray diffraction pole figure technique (XRD-PF), transmission electron diffraction (TED), and atomic force microscopy were used to characterize the crystalline structure of heteroepitaxial grown, self-assembled para-sexiphenyl (PSP) layers in detail. PSP was deposited by hot wall epitaxy on mica (001) substrates. The epitaxial growth was confirmed by XRD-PF as well as TED measurements. XRD-PF measurements reveal two crystallographic orientations of PSP parallel to the substrate, which are also cleavage planes of PSP. Both orientations—(11-1) and (11-2)—have very similar structural characteristics with respect to the substrate. Since in either orientations the interface lattices of PSP and mica are incommensurable, the observed growth mode can be referred to quasiepitaxy.