| The aim of this thesis work is to enhance the charge carrier mobility in organic semiconductors using self-assembly techniques. We discuss and demonstrate two different self-assembly mechanisms for organic semiconducting thin films. The first technique is to exploit the inherent self-alignment of liquid crystalline polymers. The second technique, graphoepitaxy, has been adopted from the processing of inorganic semiconductors. Graphoepitaxy utilizes surface topography to promote the oriented growth of crystals on amorphous substrates. In addition to studying the effects that self-assembly has on the structure of thin-films, we probe the effects of increased order on the electronic properties by the fabrication and characterization of organic thin film transistors. Most notably, we find that the charge carrier mobility is increased by a factor of 4-6 for aligned, liquid crystalline polymeric semiconductors and by a factor of 8-10 for small molecules oriented by graphoepitaxy. |
