Mesoporous ZnS Thin Films Prepared by a Nanocasting Route

Abstract

Mesoporous metal chalcogenides (e.g., ZnS, CuS, and derived mixed sulfide or selenides) show an extremely high potential in technological areas like catalysis, sensors, environmental protection, and photovoltaics. Although chemical bath deposition methods allow obtaining stable and porous metal chalcogenide films under mild and simple conditions, the reproducible preparation of highly ordered mesoporous sulfide thin films has been challenging so far. Herein, we present a simple and efficient synthetic method to prepare ZnS mesoporous thin films using a combination of a nanocasting approach and a successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) process for the infiltration. A mesoporous silica thin film, prepared by evaporation induced self-assembly (EISA), serves as the hard exotemplate for the formation of the mesostructured zinc sulfide. After selective etching of the silica framework, a stable and porous ZnS thin film is obtained, which replicates the pore structure of the hard template. A thorough combination of characterization techniques is used to assess the exotemplating process as well as the template removal.

Biomolecule‐Assisted Synthesis of Hierarchical Multilayered Boehmite and Alumina Nanosheets for Enhanced Molybdenum Adsorption

“…Over the past decade, mesoporous materials have attracted significant interest in materials research due to their high surface area, large pore volume, and tunable pore size. To date, mesoporous materials have been developed by using various synthetic methods, including soft‐templating, hard‐templating, free‐templating, nano‐casting, and electrochemical methods with various degree of control over the shape, porosity, and surface area. Due to their unique physicochemical properties, mesoporous materials have been employed for a wide variety of applications, including environmental (e.g., photocatalysis, adsorption or separation of heavy metals, and carbon monoxide oxidation), chemical (e.g., hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), and oxygen evolution reaction (OER)) as well as biomedical applications (e.g., magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound imaging, and photothermal therapy and immunosensor).…”

“…Over the past decade, mesoporous materials have attracted significanti nterest in materials research due to their high sur-face area,l arge pore volume, and tunable pore size. To date, mesoporousm aterials have been developed by using various synthetic methods, including soft-templating, [1][2][3] hard-templating, [4][5][6] free-templating, [7,8] nano-casting, [9,10] and electrochemi- International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics( WPI-MANA) and International Center for Young Scientists (ICYS) NationalInstitute for Materials Science (NIMS) 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki305-0044 (Japan) E-mail:KANETI.Valentino@nims.go.jp cal methods [11,12] with various degree of control over the shape, porosity,a nd surfacea rea.D ue to their unique physicochemicalp roperties, mesoporous materials have been employed for aw ide variety of applications, including environmental (e.g.,p hotocatalysis, [13,14] adsorption or separation of heavy metals, [15,16] and carbon monoxide oxidation [17,18] ), chemical (e.g.,h ydrogen evolution reaction (HER), [19] oxygen reduction reaction( ORR), [20] and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) [21] ) as well as biomedical applications( e.g.,m agnetic resonance imaging (MRI), [22] ultrasound imaging, and photothermal therapy [23] and immunosensor [24] ). Mesoporouso xides with nanometric dimensions have shown potential in energy storage, [25,26] catalysis, [27,28] sensing, [29,30] and adsorption.…”

Optimising conditions for the growth of nanocrystalline ZnS thin films from acidic chemical baths

“…It has applications in photonic crystal sensors [1], heterojunction diodes [2], thin film photovoltaic cells [3][4][5][6][7], optical filters [8], light emitting diodes [9] and anti-reflection coatings [10]. Several methods have been employed to synthesize thin films including spray pyrolysis [11,12], solvothermal synthesis [13,14], sol-gel [2], successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) [15], pulsed laser deposition [16], close-space sublimation [17], metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), photo-assisted MOCVD [18], RF-mganetron sputtering [19,20], electrodeposition [21,22], thermal evaporation [23], aerosol assisted chemical vapor deposition (AACVD) [24,25], chemical bath deposition (CBD) [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] and film casting method [35,36]. Among these, CBD is potentially a simple, low temperature and cost effective method to high quality thin films.…”

Effect of copper concentration on the physical properties of ZnS:Cu alloys prepared by chemical bath deposition

“…]/[Zn 2? ]) varied in the range (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18) at.% with a step of 6 at.%.…”

“…ZnS compound is a promoting candidate for a large variety of applications including photonic crystal sensors [3], optical filters [4], light-emitting diodes [5], anti-reflection coatings [6], electroluminescent devices [7], flat panel displays, phosphors [8] and photovoltaic cells [5]. Various synthetic methods have been employed to synthesize ZnS thin films, such as metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) [9], sol-gel deposition [10], radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering [11], thermionic vacuum arc [12], molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) [13], pulsed laser deposition (PLD) [14], successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) [15] and chemical bath deposition (CBD) [16]. Among these techniques, CBD is a convenient technique for producing large area thin films semiconducting materials [16].…”