Rapid growth of thin and flexible organic semiconductor single crystal Anthracene by solution growth technique for device fabrication

•Thin and flexible AN single crystals were grown by rapid technique in 30 min.•The AN crystals exhibited considerable flatness and surface roughness of about 0.11 nm.•The fabrication of OFET on prefabricated substrate was achieved.

Growth of thin and flexible organic semiconductor crystal Anthracene (AN) has been achieved in a very short duration. This simple, yet an effective approach was serendipitously found to yield high quality crystal with typical dimensions of 22×23×0.15–0.50 mm3 within a duration of about 30 min whereas a conventional method could take about 7–10 days to achieve similar dimensions. Further, these crystals were seen swirling and settling down slowly at the bottom of the growth flask. These factors were favorably utilized to place the Anthracene crystals firmly on prefabricated flexible substrates when they were kept in different heights within the solutions. This systematic approach also facilitated the fabrication of organic field effect transistor (OFET) and the results obtained were encouraging.