Nanomaterials @ Interfaces Research Group

Optimization of thin film deposition is often the limiting step in the discovery of new materials and device development. Over the years, high-throughput combinatorial methods were developed for the deposition of thin films from the gas phase. However, very few reports focused on combinatorial thin film deposition from solution. Here, we introduce a combinatorial approach for the deposition of thin films from solution. The flow deposition setup allows for simultaneously studying the effect of two critical parameters, deposition time and deposition temperature, on a single sample. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate the solution deposition of PbS thin films, which resulted in a library of 25 deposition condition combinations on a single GaAs (100) substrate. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy combined with focused ion beam cross-sectional sample preparation confirmed the formation of high-quality PbS films and showed the morphology evolution as a function of these two deposition parameters. This method can be easily adapted for cost-effective and rapid combinatorial studies of a large variety of solution-deposited thin film materials.