Highly Reactive Atomic Hydrogen as an Alternative Reactant for Atomic Layer Deposition of Platinum Using MeCpPtMe3

Hao Van Bui*, Fabio Grillo, Dieu Minh Nguyen, Manh Duc Dang, Antonius A.I. Aarnink, Rob A.M. Wolters, J. Ruud van Ommen, Alexey Y. Kovalgin

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) of platinum (Pt) has gained significant interest in the recent years due to its capability of depositing various Pt nanostructures for applications in different fields, such as Pt nanoparticles (NPs) for catalytic reactions and energy devices and Pt thin films for microelectronic technology. Among various developed processes, Pt ALD using MeCpPtMe3as the precursor has been most popularly employed owing to the high reactivity, volatility, and thermal stability of the precursor, which enable controlled deposition of Pt nanostructures in a broad range of temperatures. Typical MeCpPtMe3-based Pt ALD processes use O2and H2as the coreactants. In this study, we explore atomic hydrogen as an alternative and reveal its exceptional reactivity that outperforms H2and O2. Specifically, atomic hydrogen enables the deposition of highly dispersed Pt NPs with narrow particle size distributions (i.e., standard deviation <0.3 nm) on various oxide surfaces, including TiO2, SiO2, CeO2and V2O5, which is unattainable with H2under identical experimental conditions. In addition, it facilitates the deposition of Pt NPs with improved size uniformity and accelerates the closure of Pt films compared to ALD processes using O2as the coreactant. The results demonstrate a significant potential of atomic hydrogen as a highly effective coreactant for ALD of Pt NPs and thin films.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)13822-13829
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Physical Chemistry C
Volume129
Issue number30
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2025

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository as part of the Taverne amendment. More information about this copyright law amendment can be found at https://www.openaccess.nl. Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

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