| Rapid advances in the research and development of organic electronics have re-sulted in many exciting discoveries and applications, including OLEDs, OPVs and OTFTs. Devices based on small molecular organic materials often call for sharp interfaces and highly pure materials for improved device performance. Solvent-free deposition and additive patterning of the active layers without the use of vacuum is preferred, calling for specialized processing approaches.;Guard flow-enhanced organic vapor jet printing (GF-OVJP), enables addi-tive, rapid, mask-free, solvent-free printing of molecular organic semiconductors in ambient atmosphere by evaporating organic source material into an inert carrier gas jet and collimating and impinging it onto a substrate where the organic molecules condense. A surrounding annular "guard flow" hydrodynamically focuses the primary jet carrying the hot organic vapor and shields it from contact with the ambient oxygen and moisture, enabling device-quality deposits. Deposition in air entails non-trivial effects at the boundary between ambient surroundings and the gas jet carrying the semiconductor vapor that influence the morphology and properties of the resulting electronic devices.;This thesis demonstrates the deposition of active layers of OLEDs, OPVs and OTFTs by GF-OVJP in air. Process-structure-property relationships are elucidated, using a combination of film deposition and structural characterization (e.g. AFM, XRD, SEM, spectroscopies), device fabrication and testing, as well as compressible fluid flow, heat and mass transport modeling, thus laying the groundwork for rigorous, quantitative design of film deposition apparatus and small molecular organic semiconductor processing. |
