Interplay of Crystallization and Amorphous Spinodal Decomposition During Thermal Annealing of Organic Photoactive Layers

Siber M, Ronsin OJ, Frey GL, Harting J (2026)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2026

Journal

Advanced Science Wiley Open Access

DOI: 10.1002/advs.202524140

Abstract

Tailoring the nanomorphology of organic photoactive layers through a specialized chain of processing steps is an imperative challenge on the path toward reliable and performant organic electronic manufacturing. This hurdle generally proves delicate to be overcome, as organic materials can be subject to many different phase transformation phenomena that are able to interfere with each other and produce a wide variety of morphological configurations with distinct structural, mechanical, and optoelectronic properties. A typical combination of such mechanisms, which the present systems are often prone to, and which is complex to investigate experimentally at the nanoscale, is the phase separation resulting from the interplay between amorphous demixing and crystallization. In this work, an in-house Phase-Field modeling framework is employed to simulate and, consequently, explain the phenomenological behavior of a photoactive bulk heterojunction during a thermal annealing treatment. The model predictions are validated against available electron microscopy imaging of the nanostructural evolution during the process. It is demonstrated that the simulations can successfully provide a detailed comprehension of crystal nucleation and growth shaped by amorphous spinodal decomposition, so as to yield valuable insights for physically-based morphology control. In addition, this study shows the relevance of extensive thermodynamic and kinetic characterizations (e.g., phase diagram assessments, surface tension measurements, composition-dependent molecular diffusivity evaluations) of organic semiconductor mixtures for the associated field of research.

Involved external institutions

Forschungszentrum Jülich / Research Centre Jülich (FZJ) DE Germany (DE) Technion - Israel Institute of Technology IL Israel (IL)

How to cite

APA:

Siber, M., Ronsin, O.J., Frey, G.L., & Harting, J. (2026). Interplay of Crystallization and Amorphous Spinodal Decomposition During Thermal Annealing of Organic Photoactive Layers. Advanced Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202524140

MLA:

Siber, Maxime, et al. "Interplay of Crystallization and Amorphous Spinodal Decomposition During Thermal Annealing of Organic Photoactive Layers." Advanced Science (2026).

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