Chemical and electronic structure characterization of electrochemically deposited nickel tetraamino-phthalocyanine: A step toward more efficient deposition techniques for organic electronics application

Abstract

Phthalocyanines (Pc), with or without metal ligands, are still of high research interest, mainly for the application in organic electronics. Because of rather low solubility, Pc-based films are commonly deposited applying various advanced and demanding vacuum techniques, like physical vapor deposition (PVD). In this work, an alternative straightforward approach of NiPc layer formation is proposed in which NH2-side groups of nickel(II) tetraamino-phthalocyanine (AmNiPc) are engaged in the process of electrochemical deposition of (AmNiPc)layeron indium-tin oxide (ITO) substrates. The resulting layer is widely investigated by cyclic voltammetry, atomic force microscopy, UV- vis, and ATR-IR spectroscopies, X-ray diffraction, and photoemission techniques: X-ray and UV-photoelectron spectroscopies. The chemical and electronic structure of (AmNiPc)layeris characterized. It is shown that the electronic properties of the formed (AmNiPc)layer/ITO hybrid correspond to the ones previously reported for PVD-NiPc films.