Overview of electric-field-induced deposition technology in fabricating organic thin films

Abstract

Electric-field induced deposition (EFID) technology has been demonstrated as an effective technique for tuning the properties of inorganic, organic or organic–inorganic hybrid thin films. Here, the progress in research on thin-film fabrication using the EFID method is summarized in a concise and well-rounded way. We cover the applications of EFID in various organic materials such as organic small molecules, polymers, MOFs, COFs, HOFs, biomaterials, other carbon-based materials and their hybrid composites. Moreover, the deposition mechanism, processing parameters, and wide applications are also discussed. Although EFID could act as a versatile and reliable material-processing approach to fabricate scalable thin films, there still remain significant challenges to control the nucleation, crystallization, and self-assembly of organic materials.