Recent Advances in the Growth of Metals, Alloys, and Multilayers by Surface Limited Redox Replacement (SLRR) Based Approaches

Abstract In the realm of ever increasing importance of nanotechnology, the deposition of ultrathin metal/alloy layers with perfect structure and unique functionality becomes an objective of paramount importance. In the last decade many research groups have been working on the development and application of a new method for epitaxial thin film growth that employs a surface limited redox replacement (SLRR) as a building block reaction. The multiple repetition of this reaction enables the controlled deposition of a monolayer of metal or alloy per cycle. Work in the field has been done on the development of SLRR deposition protocols along with understanding and modelling of the SLRR reaction kinetics, on comparative studies of SLRR based routines, and on other deposition approaches. Most recently, the development of SLRR was extended to the application of all-electroless approaches for carrying out the SLRR (ESLRR). In this paper an overview of all SLRR, ESLRR and related approaches is presented. The description of the background and reaction formalism introduces the method with emphasis on its general applicability and limitations. The discussion then continues with the description of experimental approaches for carrying out a deposition process by SLRR. In this section specific consideration is given to the deposition by shuttling of the working electrode, the flow-cell configuration, the one-cell configuration, and the all-electroless approaches for realizing the repetitive application of a single-cycle SLRR reaction. Next, the ability of these approaches to produce epitaxial, flat and uniform deposits will be discussed through results of electrochemical, in-situ scanning tunneling microscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy and other characterization experiments showing advantages and limitations of SLRR growth in a variety of systems classified into three categories. In the first of these categories Cu, Ag, and Au are used as model systems to introduce the deposition by SLRR. In the second category Pd and Ru deposition by SLRR has been discussed. In the third category all studies concerning a variety of scenarios for Pt deposition by SLRR are presented and in the last part of that section deposition of alloys and multilayers is critically discussed. The paper then continues with a section presenting and discussing modelling approaches of studying the kinetics of a single-cycle SLRR reaction and concludes with the presentation of the extension of modelling to a system where multi-cycle SLRR deposition processes have been investigated. The analysis in this part focuses on the kinetic parameters of the replacement reaction like rate constant, order of the reaction, type of adsorption behavior of the sacrificial metal etc. Finally, this section concludes with a discussion of the mechanistic aspects of the SLRR reaction and more specifically on the factors impacting the deposition process and in turn the resulting structure, morphology, uniformity and continuity of the accordingly grown thin films. The paper also touches upon applied aspects of the SLRR deposition and mainly presents some basic level test results of catalysts synthesized by related deposition protocols. Finally, a glimpse into the future of this rapidly developing field is also provided.