A Polymorph Crystal Structure of Hexaphenyl Observed in Thin Films

Abstract

Highly oriented thin films of hexaphenyl — which are used in organic opto-electronic applications — are characterised in terms of their crystal structures. Two different crystal structures of hexaphenyl (C36H26) are observed when the films are prepared by physical vapour deposition at various substrate temperatures. If the substrate is kept at room temperature, hexaphenyl crystallises within a structure which is already known from single crystal investigations. However, when the thin films are grown at a substrate temperature of 160°C a new crystalline phase appears. This structure was characterised by X-ray and transmission electron diffraction. Due to the strong preferred orientation of the crystallites within the thin films, the lattice constants as well as main features of the new crystal structure could be determined. The lattice is indexed as monoclinic with: a = 7.98Å, b = 5.54Å, c = 27.64Å and β = 99.8°. The new crystal structure has high similarity to the already known crystal structure: Both structures are built by layers of hexaphenyl molecules, within one layer the aromatic planes of the hexaphenyl molecules are packed in a herringbone pattern. The characteristic feature of the new structure is that the long axes of the hexaphenyl molecules are arranged absolutely perpendicular to the layers, whereas, within the already known structure the long axes show an tilt angle of 17° to the layer normal direction.