Copper (I) guanidinate dimers were generated by a salt metathesis route and structurally characterized. The guanidinates differed from the known amidinate dimers because of a large torsion of the dimer ring. This had a direct effect on their thermal chemistry. The thermal reactivity was investigated by several methods, including a novel temperature-resolved, gas-phase method that was monitored by mass spectrometry. The copper guanidinates underwent carbodiimide deinsertion to produce copper metal at temperatures between 225 -and 250 degrees C in the gas phase and at 125 degrees C in solution. The amidinate investigated also showed copper deposition at 190 degrees C in the gas phase, and 135 degrees C in solution, but without carbodiimide deinsertion. The guanidinate compounds deposited crystalline copper at 225 degrees C in a simple chemical vapor deposition experiment.

Keywords: Thermal reaction mechanism / Gold / Silver / Copper / N ligands / Chemical vapor deposition Several guanidinates of copper and silver, as well as amidinates and guanidinates of gold were synthesized as potential precursors for vapour deposition methods. These compounds were found to be dimers in the case of copper and gold, and trimers in the case of silver. The copper compounds showed good thermal and photostability, and were isolable by sublimation. The silver compounds proved to be very reactive to both heat and light, and were found to deposit silver metal when heated, suggesting that these sensitive compounds might be used as single source precursors. The gold compounds were found to exhibit some heat and light sensitivity,

The conformal coating of a 50 nm-thick layer of copper nanoparticles deposited with pulse chemical vapor deposition of a copper (I) guanidinate precursor on the cladding of a single mode optical fiber was monitored by using a tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) photo-inscribed in the fiber core. The pulse-per-pulse growth of the copper nanoparticles is readily obtained from the position and amplitudes of resonances in the reflection spectrum of the grating. In particular, we confirm that the real part of the effective complex permittivity of the deposited nano-structured copper layer is an order of magnitude larger than that of a bulk copper film at an optical wavelength of 1550 nm. We further observe a transition in the growth behavior from granular to continuous film (as determined from the complex material permittivity) after approximately 20 pulses (corresponding to an effective thickness of 25 nm). Finally, despite the remaining granularity of the film, the final copper-coated optical fiber is shown to support plasmon waves suitable for sensing, even after the growth of a thin oxide layer on the copper surface.

Integration of nanoparticles into thin films is essential for the development of functional materials, studies of fundamental interfacial processes, and exploitation of inherent properties from the particles themselves. In this work, we systematically investigate the process of incorporation of silver nanocubes into thin polystyrene films at temperatures just above the polymer glass transition. The process of nanocrystal incorporation can be precisely monitored via far-field spectroscopy to observe the response of spatially resolved hybrid plasmon modes. Each plasmon resonance has a distinct dynamic range and maximum sensitivity forming a complementary set of nanorulers that operates over a distance comparable to the edge length of the cubes. The approach explored in this work is a general robust method for the development of long-range polychromatic nanorulers.