Researchers at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain have developed a new, simple, one-pot method to make highly conductive metal-organic ultrathin films that are both flexible and mechanically strong. The films can be produced over areas as large as mm2, are smooth, highly transparent and behave as memristors at low frequencies. They might be used in a wide variety of flexible electronics applications in the future, including health-monitoring devices.
“The future of 2D flexible electronics will rely on making conducting ultrathin films of materials that are mechanically robust and flexible in a simple but controlled manner,” says Miriam Moreno-Moreno, who is the lead author of this study. “In this respect, metal-organic compounds are better than inorganic laminar crystals. While most metal-organic compounds are usually prepared in the bulk, researchers have recently found that some can be processed down to ultrathin, 2D films. In our work, we report on a one-pot technique (carried out on the surface of water) to make ultrathin films (just 4 nm thick) of the metal organic compound [Cu2I2(TAA)]n where TAA is thioacetamide.”
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