Polyoxometalate – rich thin films with controlled structure and function for designer electronics

During the last two decades, polyoxometalates (POMs) have attracted growing attention due to their potential application as functional materials potentially enabling new device design and opening new areas of technology. POMs are metal-oxide clusters of early transition metals Mo, W, V, etc with a diverse range of structures and properties, such as reversible electrical capacitance,[1] programmable surface 0D, 2D or 3D structure[2] which could together be of potential application in ultra-high-density data storage,[3],5 catalysis[4] and also in medicine as antiviral drugs.[5] In the present work, we show that it is possible to assemble structured thin-films by the self-assembly/organization of different POMs (Mo96- and V16-clusters, TRIS-Mn-Anderson and Mn-Dawson types) onto solid supports via electrochemical co-deposition or by preparing multi-planar heterojunction structures with polymers via Langmuir-Schaefer deposition. In the framework of nanoscale organic/hybrid electronics we show here the relationships between the thin film structure and electrochromic or smart dielectric properties.