The developing field of printed electronics has expanded considerably in the last decade, with this market expected to be valued at $300 billion by 2030. This growing area of research, which includes devices such as sensors, displays, integrated circuits, etc., is seeing a push towards faster, cheaper and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes that make use of flexible and renewable substrates. Inkjet printing is a fast and low-cost method of manufacturing that has displayed prominence as an alternative to traditional manufacturing techniques. To capitalize on this technique, suitable metal inks that allow deposition of conductive metals at low temperatures are crucial. Metal-organic decomposition (MOD) inks are one such example of metal inks that have exhibited the ability to deposit metals at low temperatures. Thus, the use of the inkjet printing process with a focus on MOD inks presents extensive potential for the deposition of conductive metal features onto low-cost substrates such as paper and plastic. To date, there has been little research into aluminium MOD ink chemistry, with previous work focussing only on a few different amine-stabilised aluminium hydride compounds to deposit aluminium metal.This work presents a more synthetically driven approach to aluminium precursor development using thiourea compounds as ligands. Although, thiourea ligands are common in transition metal complexes, there is a paucity of literature surrounding aluminium-thioureide complexes. This research presents several novel tris-ligated aluminium-thoureide complexes displaying octahedral geometry around the aluminium centre. Novel complexes have been fully characterised by a range of techniques including SCXRD, NMR, MS and EA. Additionally, the thermal decomposition of these novel precursors has been investigated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) to gauge their suitability as MOD precursors. Also, using thermal analysis data, we can analyse trends such that better performing precursors (those that decompose more cleanly and at lower temperature, whilst maintaining good stability) containing different ligand systems can be predicted and subsequently synthesised.

Designer aluminium compounds for use as precursors for metal thin films deposition

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.