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Phase separation in ternary charge-transfer-complexes

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Abstract

Mixing of different organic charge-transfer-complexes (CT-complexes) might allow the adjustment of the optical and morphological properties of the resulting material system. In this work, a study of two CT-complexes, mixed by thermal coevaporation at different concentrations by substituting only the acceptor molecules, is presented. Electron diffraction patterns, which were collected on samples of the ternary system of the prototypical CT-complexes DBTTF-TCNQ and DBTTF-F4TCNQ do not show any indication of a mixed crystalline phase or novel crystalline order. X-ray diffraction measurements additionally confirm the phase separation in the ternary system. However, upon mixing of the complexes, the degree of crystallinity of the individual phases is reduced. This effect correlates with the mixing ratio of the CT-complexes in the ternary compound. Furthermore, we do not observe a shift or the appearance of new peaks in the infrared spectra of (DBTTF-TCNQ) x :(DBTTF-F4TCNQ)1−x . Hence, there is no indication for a pronounced or novel chemical interaction between the individual CT-complexes in the mixed compound.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (FKZ 13N10794, FKZ 13N10724) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SPP1355-Project PF385/4) for the financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kirchhoff-Institute for Physics, University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 227, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Diana Nanova, Sebastian Beck, Milan Alt, Tobias Glaser, Annemarie Pucci & Michael Kroeger

  2. CellNetworks, BioQuant, University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 267, 69129, Heidelberg, Germany

    Katrin Schultheiß, Levin Dieterle & Rasmus R. Schröder

  3. Institute for Experimental Physics VI and ZAE Bayern, University of Wuerzburg, 97074, Wuerzburg, Germany

    Jens Pflaum

  4. Institute for High-Frequency Technology, Technical University of Braunschweig, Schleinitzstr. 22, 38106, Braunschweig, Germany

    Diana Nanova, Levin Dieterle, Wolfgang Kowalsky & Michael Kroeger

  5. InnovationLab GmbH, Speyerer Str. 4, 69115, Heidelberg, Germany

    Diana Nanova, Sebastian Beck, Milan Alt, Tobias Glaser, Annemarie Pucci, Katrin Schultheiß, Levin Dieterle, Rasmus R. Schröder, Wolfgang Kowalsky & Michael Kroeger

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  1. Diana Nanova
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Correspondence to Diana Nanova.

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Nanova, D., Beck, S., Alt, M. et al. Phase separation in ternary charge-transfer-complexes. Appl. Phys. A 112, 1019–1025 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-012-7469-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-012-7469-2

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