Bottom-up tailoring of photonic nanofibers

Aligned ensembles of nanoscopic nanofibers from organic molecules such as para-phenylenes for photonic applications can be fabricated by self-assembled molecular growth on a suited dielectric substrate. Epitaxy together with alignment due to electric surface fields determines the growth directions. In this paper we demonstrate how aligned growth along arbitrary directions can be realized by depositing the molecules on a micro-structured and gold covered Silicon surface, consisting of channels and ridges. For the correct combination of ridge width and deposition temperature fibers grow perpendicular to the ridge edge, emitting light polarized along the ridges after UV excitation.