Thin film deposition and growth of graphene-like 2-D Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) for electronic applications

Abstract

Even though studies on electronic characterization and applications of MOFs are still in its infancy, high charge carrier’s mobility and conductivities have already been reported for 2D coordination polymers. For instance, one of the most outstanding electronic MOFs reported is Ni3(HATP)2. This compound, first described in 2014, has been only studied in the format of thin films providing mobilities as high as 48 cm2V-1s-1 and conductivities of 40 S·cm-1 leading to applications shown in high standing publications. Exfoliation of these systems down to monolayer flakes (real 2D graphene-like materials), in any case no more than a few layers thick (really below 100 nm) will be faced for the first time. The interest for this is two-fold: I) from a scientific point of view to study the confinement effect on the electronic properties (conduction, spin states or photoelectronics) of these materials and II) to achieve its implementation into hybrid devices targeting applications as energy storage, sensors or memories. Alternatively, we are also planning to design novel metal ion-organic ligand connections with enhanced properties with all the knowledge gained in the previous studies. Moreover, we aim also to model the properties found with mathematical models.