Solvent effect on columnar formation in solar-cell geometry

Abstract

The efficiency of the conduction of photocurrent in discotic liquid crystals is known to depend on the quality of the columnar organization. Solvents have shown to be able to influence the formation of wire structures on substrates promoting very long and ordered wired formations or bulkier structures depending on the affinity of the solvent with parts of the molecular structure of discotics. Here we present a study on the effect of solvents when the liquid crystal is confined between two substrates with the columns running perpendicular to them, geometry used in solar cells. We focused on toluene and dodecane, solvents that have shown to promote on substrates the formation of aligned and long nanowires and bulk large and isolated fibers, respectively. The phase transition behavior indicates that toluene does not interfere with the columnar formation while dodecane strongly influence increasing the disorder in the structure.