Publications

Energy Materials Laboratory

Publications

Meniscus-Guided Control of Supersaturation for the Crystallization of High Quality Metal Organic Framework Thin Films
Authors
J. C. Lee, J. O. Kim, H. J. Lee, B. Shin, S. Park
Journal
Chemistry of Materials
Vol
31 (18)
Page
7377-7385
Year
2019

Herein, meniscus-guided crystallization is introduced as a means to grow high quality metal organic framework (MOF) thin films. A meniscus was formed between a target substrate and a coating blade, and by adjusting various parameters such as substrate temperature and coating speed, supersaturation was precisely controlled, through which the crystallization process was finely tuned. Consequently, a densely packed intergrown MOF thin film with thickness tunability down to 450 nm was demonstrated. The individual crystals exhibited monodispersity in size. Interestingly, the use of a microstructured coating blade resulted in the change of crystal shape, attributed to the supersaturation-induced kinetically driven crystallization process. Our film growth process is large-area scalable, uses a miniscule amount of solution, and has substrate versatility. Such an insight and demonstration of MOF thin-film growth via meniscus-guided crystallization will be highly useful for the development of various MOF thin-film-based devices in the future.