“…[1a,3] These characteristics are particularly important in developing metal oxide precursors, since the volatile species must ideally survive oxidizing and/or moisture-rich background environments to cleanly decompose/yield films in the reactor hot-zone. Previously, our efforts [4] focused on the volatility challenges of small charge-to-radius ratio metal ions (e.g., alkaline earths) and their derived films, however, recent advances in lanthanide-containing ceramics (high-temperature superconductors, [5] rare-earth doped phosphors, [6] dielectrics, [5,7] and magnetic materials [8] ) led us to simultaneously explore the growth of these materials in thin-film form. Immediately, we discovered that lanthanide ions pose many of the same vapor transport challenges as alkaline earths, [9] and the synthesis of fluorine-free, volatile, and robust precursors is currently an unrealized objective for successful film growth.…”