The electronic states of the surface and interface of 3,4, 9, 10-perylenetetracarboxylic dianhydride （PTCDA）/indium-tin-oxide （ITO） thin film are investigated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy （XPS）. A- tomic force microscopy （AFM） is also applied to investigate the pattern of PTCDA/ITO film. XPS results show that there are two main peaks,which are associated with C atoms in the perylene rings and acid anhydride groups, located at 284.6 and 288.7eV, respectively,in the Cls spectrum of the original surface. It can be deduced from the emergence of a small peak at 290.4eV in the Cls spectrum that some C atoms are oxidized by O atoms from ITO. The binding energies of O atoms in C-O bonds and C--O---C bonds are 531.5 and 533.4eV respectively. At the interface,the peak at the high binding energy in the Cls spectrum disappears,and the peak value shifts about 0.2eV to lower binding energy, There is a significant 1.5eV chemical shift to lower binding energy in the Ols spectrum. These observations indicate that perylene rings inside PTCDA molecules are combined with In vacancies in the ITO at the interface. The AFM results show that PTCDA molecules formed an island-like structure a height of about 14nm. The sizes of the crystal grains are about 100--300nm. The island-like pattern comes from the delocalized π bonds of adjacent molecules in PTCDA and the combination of vacancies in ITO with perylene rings at the PTCDA/ITO interface.
