Anisotropy in the Mobility and Photogeneration of Charge Carriers in Thin Films of Discotic Hexabenzocoronenes, Columnarly Self-Assembled on Friction-Deposited Poly(tetrafluoroethylene)

The mobility of charge carriers in poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) -aligned hexabenzocoronene (HBC) films was shown to be highly anisotropic with transport along the columns favored by more than an order of magnitude. The transition dipole moment of the first optical absorption band was oriented parallel to the polymer backbone. A substantial difference between the two HBC derivatives was found to be in the decay kinetics of the photoconductivity.