Tunable interface properties between pentacene and graphene on the SiC substrate

Abstract

Understanding energy-level alignment and molecular growth characteristics of an organic semiconductor on the graphene surface is crucial for graphene-related device performance. Here we demonstrate that tunable interface properties and molecular orientation can be achieved by modifying graphene films on a SiC substrate with monolayer copper-hexadecafluorophthalocyanine (F 16CuPc) molecules. On clean graphene, pentacene molecules form a tilted configuration even at very low coverage (one or two monolayers) rather than flat-lying as on the graphite surface. Pentacene molecules prefer to grow with a (022) plane parallel to the clean graphene surface. With increasing coverage, X-ray adsorption data indicate there is no obvious change of molecular stacking orientation. The corresponding hole injection barrier is about 0.7 eV. On the modified graphene where thin (one or two monolayers) F16CuPc molecules are flat-lying on graphene, an almost perfect up-standing molecular stacking of pentacene film was formed on the modified surface. A low hole injection barrier of 0.3 eV was observed. Furthermore, the interface of dirty graphene upon pentacene was also discussed. © 2013 American Chemical Society.