Fig. 1
From: Multistep nucleation and growth mechanisms of organic crystals from amorphous solid states
Five-step biomimetic self-assembly trajectories of C7P-BTBT on the SiO2 surface. a Classical monomer-by-monomer addition (left) and the structure of CnP-BTBT (n = 3–11) (right). b Nonclassical two-step coalescence mechanism. c Plots of the free energy change as a function of reaction coordinate in classical (orange), nonclassical (green) and evolutionary selection (purple) growth models. d Evolutionary selection growth approach and time-lapse sequence of representative AFM images showing the morphological evolution of the precursors on the SiO2 surface. From left to right, the images were taken at 0 h (as-spin coated liquid-like droplets), 0.07 h (droplets flattened into pancake-like nanoplates), 0.22 h (nanoplates collapsed into fully covered base film), 2.32 h (base films demixed into thick islands and thin islands), 12.08 h (thin islands shrank while thick islands grew) and 18.13 h (thick islands grew vertically into a crystallised film). Scale bar: 2 µm
