Step-by-step growth of highly oriented and continuous seeding layers of [Cu-2(ndc)(2)(dabco)] on bare oxide and nitride substrates

The step-by-step growth of highly oriented and continuous thin films of [Cu-2(ndc)(2)(dabco)] (1) at 50 degrees C was studied and compared with growth directly from solvothermal mother solution at 120 degrees C. The substrates were bare unmodified SiO2, Al2O3 grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD), Ta2O5 and Si3N4. The deposited layers of 1 were characterized via in-plane and out-of-plane X-ray powder diffraction (PXRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The stepwise film formation process was studied by the variation of the reaction conditions and washing procedures indicating an island growth mode and the importance of storage effects. The highly oriented layers obtained by the step-by-step method were used as seeds for the deposition of thicker films of 500-700 nm with the same orientation directly from solvothermal mother solution.