Optical properties of rubrene thin film prepared by thermal evaporation**Project supported by the Funding for the Development Project of Beijing Municipal Education Commission of Science and Technology, China (Grant No. KZ201410005008), the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing City, China (Grant No. 4102014), and the Graduate Science Fund of the Beijing University of Technology, China (Grant No. ykj-2013-9835).

Abstract

Rubrene thin films are deposited on quartz substrates and silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) films by the thermal evaporation technique. The optical properties of rubrene thin film are investigated in a spectral range of 190 nm–1600 nm. The analysis of the absorption coefficient (α) reveals direct allowed transition with a corresponding energy of 2.24 eV. The photoluminescence (PL) peak of the rubrene thin film is observed to be at 563 nm (2.21 eV). With the use of Ag NPs which are fabricated by radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering on the quartz, the PL intensity is 8.5 times that of as-deposited rubrene thin film. It is attributed to the fact that the surface plasmon enhances the photoluminescence.