Film characteristics, precursor properties

TABLE 2.4. Precursor Properties that May Affect Film Characteristics... 

This chapter shows the potential of sol-gel chemistry for the synthesis of solution precursors used in the CSD of thin films with electrical properties. CSD is an alternative low-cost deposition technique to the vacuiun and high-temperature deposition methods that, in addition, makes it possible to obtain stoichiometric and uniform thin films. Electrical properties of electroceramic thin films are extremely sensitive to processing, microstructure, heterostructure, crystallinity, or charged defects of the film. Sol-gel offers the chance of controlling these film characteristics and therefore the functional properties by tailoring the solution chemistry and the thermal conversion of the as-deposited gel layer into a ceramic film. 

This section is completed with a brief review of the synthesis and properties of this epimer (20) of the precursor of thiazole in bacteria. This pentulose is conveniently accessible by an unconventional route (Scheme 19). Methyl 2,3 4,6-di-O-isopropylidene-a-D-mannopyranoside, readily available from methyl ot-D-mannopyranoside, is converted to the ketonic glycoside by butyllithium in 91% yield, following a method first published by Klemer and Rodemeyer43 and scaled up by Horton and Weckerle.44 This was converted by means of lithium hydroxide in a water-ether mixture into 3,5-0-benzylidene-l-deoxy-D-eryf/iro-2-pen-tulose in 55% yield. Hydrolysis to the free pentulose (20) proceeded in 73% yield in aqueous acetic acid. This product was obtained as a syrup with a characteristic absorption band at 1705 cm 1 as a film. Thus, there is a fair proportion of the open-chain ketone under these conditions, as with the D-threo epimer.45... 

In any case, it is clear that, for its own nature, sol-gel material is suitable for the formation of many different composite materials [207] inorganic and organic polymers, as well as many different kinds of nano-objects possessing effective electrocatalytic properties, can find stable inclusion into a host matrix possessing all the characteristics previously listed. The most simple approach consists of adding the filler to the siliceous matrix after sol-gel formation. However, composite materials can also be obtained by synthesizing the sol-gel film in the presence of the precursor of the filler, e.g., a monomer [227] or a metal complex [228]. The synthesis of the composite material is finalized in a subsequent step, e.g. by a chemical oxidation or reduction, leading to polymer chains or metal nanoparticles, respectively, included inside the sol-gel matrix. 

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