In this paper, we demonstrate that atom probe tomography (APT) can be applied to small-molecule organic materials. We show that APT can provide an unprecedented combination of mass resolution of <1Da, spatial resolution of ∼0.3nm in z and ∼1nm in x-y, and analytic sensitivity of ∼50ppm with no evidence of molecular fragmentation. We discuss two systems that demonstrate the power of APT to uncover structure-property relationships in organic systems that have proven extremely difficult to probe using existing techniques: (1) a previously published model organic photovoltaic system in which we show a chemical reaction occurs at the heterointerface; and (2) a model organic light-emitting diode system in which we show molecular segregation occurs in the emissive layer bulk. These examples illustrate the power of APT to enable new insights into organic molecular materials.
@article{arxiv.1806.10650,
title = {Atom Probe Tomography of Organic Molecular Materials: Sub-Dalton Nanometer-Scale Quantification},
author = {Andrew P. Proudian and Matthew B. Jaskot and David R. Diercks and Brian P. Gorman and Jeramy D. Zimmerman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.10650},
year = {2020}
}