Jet vapor deposition of organic guest-inorganic host thin films for optical and electronic applications

Abstract

The optical and electronic properties of organic molecules suggest application in hybrid optical-electronic integrated circuits and thin film devices, but pure, high quality, organic solid films are difficult to make. A better approach is to trap organic molecules as guests at high concentration in a durable host-guest film. Polymer, plastic, and sol-gel films can serve as hosts,1–3but their properties are less than ideal, and the techniques for making them time consuming and involved. Here we describe our Jet Vapor Deposition (JVD) technology for trapping complex organic dyes in hard, adherent inorganic hosts. Jet vapor deposition is the only vapor deposition technique able to make organic-ceramic films, and it offers a number of advantages over other approaches. Individual organic guests can be trapped at high doping levels of several percent, and the possible combinations of guest and host are nearly unlimited. The properties of vapor deposited ceramic hosts are superior to those of polymer hosts. Deposition at high rate and room temperature enables reliable, high throughput, economic production, and renders JVD compatible with semiconductor vapor deposition technology. Here we review the principles of JVD, describe experimental applications to thin film waveguides, lasers, and chemical sensors, and discuss some of the properties of JVD host-guest materials.