Solid-phase cryochemical synthesis

Metal vapor techniques provide unique means for cryochemical solid-phase synthesis of metal-containing systems. In this way, metastable compounds, whose existence earlier was only supposed, have been obtained [7]. Besides, cryochemical processes produce stabilized small metal clusters of quantum type, which are the intermediate form of matter between isolated atoms and bulk metal [8, 9]. However, known methods of cryochemical solid-phase synthesis used low-molecular-weight matrices, in which the initial products of such a synthesis can be conserved only at low temperatures, when the matrix is enough rigid to hinder transformation or loss of these products. 

In this coimection, a cryochemical solid-phase synthesis of metal-polymer systems is of special importance. As a result of such a synthesis, metal clusters and organometallic assemblies formed at low temperatures are buried in a polymer environment, which offers possibilities to stabilize and study these products over a large temperature range. This method was first offered and described in reference 10. The thermal rearrangement of the initial low-temperature system is governed by relaxation processes in polymer matrix. In particular, the aggregation of metal atom clusters to form metal nanocrystals in cryochemically produced metal-polymer systems yields new nanocomposite materials with valuable properties. The study of the mechanism of cluster aggregation, which depends on the characteristics of the polymer matrix, will allow the nanocomposite structure to proceed in the needed direction. Thus, it becomes possible to determine the methods of cryochemical synthesis of metal-polymer materials with predetermined properties. 

The cryochemical vapor deposition synthesis of metal-polymer films (from the gaseous state to the solid polymer one, bypassing the liquid phase) allows the production of both new organometallic structures and new valuable composites with high concentrations of nano-sized metal or semiconductor particles. 

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