 Plastic electronics, in which an organic material replaces silicon, hold promise for low-cost, flexible electronics. But understanding and controlling the microstructures of these materials is an ongoing challenge. With the help of the D1 x-ray beamline at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), Ithaca, N.Y., scientists are closer to designing the perfect organic semiconductor by spatially mapping the microstructure, texture, grain sizes, and grain orientations of organic semiconductor thin films. Detlef Smilgies, senior research associate at CHESS, is co-author of an article in the journal Advanced Materials (Vol. 24, No. 41) that describes this direct structural mapping.