Organic van der Waals Epitaxy versus Templated Growth by Organic–Organic Heteroepitaxy

During the last years, epitaxially grown self-assembled organic nanostructures have been gaining increasing interest due to their high potential for the implementation within optoelectronic devices. In the first part of the chapter, the influence of substrate surface symmetry on the formation of organic crystallites should be discussed. It is demonstrated that the obtained crystal orientations and morphologies result from a complex interplay between various parameters, e.g., substrate surface symmetry, molecular adsorption, crystal structure and crystal-contact plane. Consequently, a precise control on the molecular adsorption geometry and crystal contact plane represents a fundamental key parameter for the fabrication of organic device structures. The second part deals with the potential of organic–organic heteroepitaxy for templated growth. In that sense, it is described how organic–organic interfaces can be effectively used to gain control on the molecular adsorption geometry.