Controlled solvent vapour annealing for polymer electronics

Solvent vapour annealing (SVA) is demonstrated as an attractive method to anneal polymer blend and block copolymer thin films at low temperatures. It is especially suitable for organic electronics, where sensitive materials with strong intermolecular interactions are used. We demonstrate the effect of solvent vapour exposure on the film properties of a perylene bisimide acrylate (PPerAcr) side-chain polymer with strong crystallinity at the perylene bisimide moieties. We record the film thickness, light absorption and fluorescence as a function of the relative solvent vapour pressure. At a certain threshold of relative solvent vapour pressure, we observe a disruption of the π–π stacking, whi…