Resonant Grazing-Incidence Small-Angle X-ray Scattering at the Sulfur K-Edge for Material-Specific Investigation of Thin-Film Nanostructures

J Phys Chem Lett. 2018 Jun 7;9(11):3081-3086. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b01111. Epub 2018 May 24.

Abstract

Scattering techniques are a powerful tool for probing thin-film nanomorphologies but often require additional characterization by other methods. We applied the well-established grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) technique for a selection of energies around the absorption edge of sulfur to exploit the resonance effect (grazing incidence resonant tender X-ray scattering, GIR-TeXS) of the sulfur atoms within a poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl):phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PC61BM) sample to gain information about the composition of the film morphology. With this approach, it is possible not only to identify structures within the investigated thin film but also to link them to a particular material combination.