Revealing nanoscale optical properties and morphology in perfluoropentacene films by confocal and tip-enhanced near-field optical microscopy and spectroscopy

Combining high resolution optical microscopy and spectroscopy, we propose a novel, generally applicable and highly sensitive method for determining the local morphology in organic semiconductor thin films (e.g. perfluoropentacene (PFP)). An azimuthally or radially polarized doughnut mode (APDM or RPDM) laser beam is focused by a high numerical aperture parabolic-mirror to excite a diffraction limited volume of the PFP film with an electric field polarized either exclusively in-plane or dominantly out-of-plane (relative to the substrate). We find two distinct morphologies of thin PFP films: molecular aggregates and crystalline terraces. The well-defined dipole emission patterns observed from the molecular aggregates strongly suggest the presence of localized excitations. For both laser modes, we observe that for the PFP aggregates, the photoluminescence (PL) emission from the main electronic transition is blue-shifted by about 10 meV, as compared to that from the molecular terraces. For the C–C bending modes, the B3g at 1581 cm−1 (ν1) and the Ag at 1316 cm−1 (ν0), we observe a decrease of the intensity ratio (Iν1/Iν0) from 0.6 (terrace) to 0.15 (aggregate). Furthermore, the intensity ratios (IAPDM/IRPDM) of ν1 excited by different polarizations increase from 0.12 (terrace) to 0.73 (aggregate). These results indicate that the PFP molecules orient rather parallel to the substrate in the aggregates, whilst more upright in the terraces. Benefiting from the nanometer scale optical resolution offered by the tip-enhanced near-field optical method, we observe clear optical contrasts between the molecular aggregate and the terrace as well as individual layers within a terrace. Tip-enhanced optical spectra locally taken from the molecular terrace and the aggregate show similar blue-shift of the main PL peak and change in the Raman intensity with different polarizations as from the far-field assemble-measurements, which further confirms the different molecular orientations in these two morphologies.