Multipurpose organic–inorganic hybrid dielectrics with photothermal crosslinking of zirconium-oxo clusters

Abstract

Metal-oxo cluster molecules serve as effective building blocks in various applications, such as linkers for organic-inorganic hybrid materials, photoresists for extreme ultraviolet lithography, direct printing ink for micro/nanofabrication, and dielectrics for microelectronics. In this study, we investigate solution-based hexanuclear zirconium-oxo (Zr6-oxo) clusters and their thin-film fabrication process through efficient photothermal treatment to activate and polymerize the clusters. Various annealing conditions are analyzed by varying the temperature and deep ultraviolet light irradiation time. Under optimized conditions, the Zr6-oxo cluster thin-films are robust dielectrics with high breakdown strength and extremely low leakage current density (3.28 × 10−9 A/cm2 at 2 MV/cm). The excellent dielectric performance of Zr6-oxo cluster thin-films and direct patterning via a simple etching procedure make it a more accessible approach to developing micro/nanopatterned dielectric layers. The proposed method facilitates the use of Zr6-oxo clusters with simple processing rather than complex multiprocessing. In addition, the observations suggest that other metal-oxo cluster thin-film systems can be investigated using similar approaches.