Spray-coating deposition for large area organic thin-film devices

We report the implementation and testing of an airbrush coating system for the fabrication of a variety of organic electronic and optoelectronic devices using a commercially available airbrush unit. Our setup was implemented inside a glove box in order to allow the entire fabrication process of the test devices to be performed under nitrogen atmosphere. Several devices such as organic photodetectors, organic light-emitting diodes and organic thin-film transistors were fabricated using commercially available polymers (such as MEH-PPV, P3HT and PCBM). IV-characteristics, as well as film morphology and roughness of spray coated devices were compared to those of spin coated devices with similar architecture. Although films deposited by spray coating showed a considerably higher surface roughness, the corresponding devices are capable of achieving performances comparable to those of spin coated devices.