Synthesis of Stannyl-Substituted Zn4O4 Cubanes as Single-Source Precursors for Amorphous Tin-Doped ZnO and Zn2SnO4 Nanocrystals and Their Potential for Thin Film Field Effect Transistor Applications

Abstract

The first heterobimetallic alkyl(trimethylstannoxy)zinc clusters with the formula [Me3SnOZnR]4 (R = Me 1, Et 2) are facile accessible by the Bronsted acid−base reaction of trimethyltin hydroxide with the respective zinc dialkyls ZnR2 (R = Me, Et). The resulting products 1 and 2 can be isolated as white solids in high yields (>95%) and were characterized by multinuclear NMR, elemental analysis, FTIR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses. They proved to serve as unprecedented low-temperature single source precursors (SSPs) for the fabrication of tin-containing ZnO as well as zinc stannate semiconducting materials and could be successfully utilized in field effect transistor (FET) applications. The thermal degradation of 1 and 2 under dry synthetic air, monitored by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA and TGA-IR), indicates high volatility of the trimethylstannyl group, which turned out to be the key parameter to control the tin concentration in the final semiconducting p...