Traceable atomic force microscopy of high-quality solvent-free crystals of [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester

We report high-resolution, traceable atomic force microscopy measurements of high-quality, solvent-free single crystals of [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM). These were grown by drop-casting PCBM solutions onto the spectrosil substrates and by removing the residual solvent in a vacuum. A home-built atomic force microscope featuring a plane mirror differential optical interferometer, fiber-fed from a frequency-stabilized laser (emitting at 632.8 nm), was used to measure the crystals' height. The optical interferometer together with the stabilized laser provides traceability (via the laser wavelength) of the vertical measurements made with the atomic force microscope. We find that the crystals can conform to the surface topography, thanks to their height being significantly smaller compared to their lateral dimensions (namely, heights between about 50 nm and 140 nm, for the crystals analysed, vs. several tens of microns lateral dimensions). The vast majority of the crystals are flat, but an isolated, non-flat crystal provides insights into the growth mechanism and allows identification of “molecular terraces” whose height corresponds to one of the lattice constants of the single PCBM crystal (1.4 nm) as measured with X-ray diffraction.