Correlating Nanostructure, Optical and Electronic Properties of Nanogranular Silver Layers during Polymer-Template-Assisted Sputter Deposition

Gensch, Marc and Schwartzkopf, Matthias and Ohm, Wiebke and Brett, Calvin J and Pandit, Pallavi and Varalil, Sarathlal Koyiloth and Biessmann, Lorenz and Kreuzer, Lucas P and Drewes, Jonas and Polonskyi, Oleksandr and Strunskus, Thomas and Faupel, Franz and Stierle, Andreas and Mueller-Buschbaum, Peter and Roth, Stephan V (2019) Correlating Nanostructure, Optical and Electronic Properties of Nanogranular Silver Layers during Polymer-Template-Assisted Sputter Deposition. In: ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES, 11 (32). pp. 29416-29426.

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Abstract

Tailoring the optical and electronic properties of nanostructured polymer-metal composites demonstrates great potential for efficient fabrication of modern organic optical and electronic devices such as flexible sensors, transistors, diodes, or photovoltaics. Self-assembled polymer metal nanocomposites offer an excellent perspective for creating hierarchical nanostructures on macroscopic scales by simple bottom-up processes. We investigate the growth processes of nanogranular silver (Ag) layers on diblock copolymer thin film templates during sputter deposition. The Ag growth is strongly driven by self-assembly and selective wetting on the lamella structure of polystyrene-block-poly (methyl methacrylate). We correlate the emerging nanoscale morphologies with collective optical and electronic properties and quantify the difference in Ag growth on the corresponding homopolymer thin films. Thus, we are able to determine the influence of the respective polymer template and observe substrate effects on the Ag cluster percolation threshold, which affects the insulator-to-metal transition (IMT). Optical spectroscopy in the UV-vis regime reveals localized surface plasmon resonance for the metal polymer composite. Their maximum absorption is observed around the IMT due to the subsequent long-range electron conduction in percolated nanogranular Ag layers. Using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, we identify the oxidation of Ag at the acrylate side chains as an essential influencing factor driving the selective wetting behavior in the early growth stages. The results of polymer-templated cluster growth are corroborated by atomic force microscopy and field emission scanning electron microscopy.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
Publisher:	AMER CHEMICAL SOC
Additional Information:	copyright for this article belongs to AMER CHEMICAL SOC
Keywords:	polymer-metal interface; metal cluster percolation; growth kinetics; GISAXS; block copolymer
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	17 Sep 2019 11:04
Last Modified:	17 Sep 2019 11:04
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/63562

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