Nucleation driven by out-of-equilibrium solution processing for organic electronic devices*

Organic electronic devices are commonly manufactured from a solution using far-out-of-equilibrium processing. The efficiency of these devices depend strongly on the solidified morphology that emerges spontaneously during manufacturing. Although it is well established that the rate of solvent evaporation is one of the important processing conditions, a theoretical understanding on how it influences the morphologies in these devices remains lacking. We apply classical nucleation theory to model how the onset of solidification is influenced by transient effects due to solvent evaporation. Our work shows that the nucleation rate lags behind its quasi-steady-state value, and that the magnitude of this effect depends non-trivially on the evaporation rate. In contrast, the induction time for the onset of nucleation decreases with increasing evaporation rate. Our findings might be relevant for the rational design of organic electronic devices.