Cuprous or cupric? How substrate polarity can select for different phases of copper sulfide films in chemical bath deposition.

Copper sulfides have many applications from thermoelectrics to biotechnology. While the properties of different copper sulfide phases are well understood, controlling the deposited copper sulfide stoichiometry remains a significant challenge, especially in solution-phase synthesis techniques. In this work, we investigate the chemical bath deposition of CuS on functionalized self-assembled monolayers (SAMs).

Chemical Bath Deposition of Copper Sulfide on Functionalized SAMs: An Unusual Selectivity Mechanism.

We have investigated the chemical bath deposition (CBD) of CuS using thioacetamide on functionalized self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) using scanning electron and optical microscopies, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry. For all SAMs studied, the amount of CuS deposited is strongly dependent on the bath pH and can be attributed to the interaction of the SAM terminal groups with the chalcogenide ions present in solution. For -CH-terminated SAMs, there is a steady increase in the amount of CuS deposited with an increase in the bath pH because there is an increase in the concentration of chalcogenide ion.

Law and Disorder: Special Stacking Units-Building the Intergrowth CeCoGe.

A new structure type of composition CeCoGe was grown out of a molten Sn flux. CeCoGe crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Cmcm, with highly anisotropic lattice parameters of a = 4.3293(5) Å, b = 55.