Atomic/molecular layer deposition of hybrid inorganic-organic thin films from erbium guanidinate precursor

Luminescent erbium-based inorganic-organic hybrid materials play an important role in many frontier nano-sized applications, such as amplifiers, detectors and OLEDs. Here, we demonstrate the possibility to fabricate high-quality thin films comprising both erbium and an appropriate organic molecule as a luminescence sensitizer utilizing the combined atomic layer deposition and molecular layer deposition ( ALD/ MLD) technique. We employ tris( N,N'- diisopropyl 2- dimethylamido guanidinato) erbium(III) [Er(DPDMG) (3)] together with 3,5pyridine dicarboxylic acid as precursors. With the appreciably high film deposition rate achieved (6.4 angstrom cycle (-1)), the guanidinate precursor indeed appears as an interesting new addition to the ALD/ MLD precursor variety toward novel materials. Our erbium-organic thin films showed highly promising UV absorption properties and a photoluminescence at 1535 nm for a 325-nm excitation, relevant to possible future luminescence applications.