Low temperature chemical vapour deposition of ruthenium and ruthenium dioxide on polymer surfaces

Thin films of ruthenium or ruthenium dioxide can be prepared on polymer films supported on aluminium disks by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) from the volatile precursor ruthenium tetroxide, RuO 4 , by using hydrogen as reducing carrier gas. On very thin (ca. 0.7 µm) spin-cast polymer films on aluminium, ruthenium metal was deposited under mild conditions. These ruthenium films were crystalline when formed on polyurethane or poly(methyl methacrylate) but mostly amorphous when formed on polystyrene or poly(ether/ester)polyurethane block copolymers. On thicker polymer films (ca. 75 µm), the films formed were composed primarily of RuO 2 with lesser amounts of ruthenium metal. The films were characterized by using XPS, Auger, XANES, XRD and SEM techniques.