Studies of the chemical and electrical properties of fullerene and 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane based low-k materials

Among an extremely large number of possible fullerene applications in the field of electronics, optics and photovoltaics, C60-cages are also considered as a promising dopant for low dielectric constant (low-k) materials. In this study, we incorporated C60 species into a 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS) based material. We prepared thin films by spin coating. Using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy we analyzed the time-related interactions between the components of the prepared samples and the influence of the C60 replacement by its better soluble derivative [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) on the chemical properties of the material. We applied atomic force microscopy to investigate the surface texture and thicknesses of the obtained films. In order to obtain information concerning the electrical properties of the material we performed capacitance-voltage characterization. We have proven that the increase of C60 species realized by PCBM incorporation within the APTMS-based matrix reduces the dielectric constant of the examined films while preserving its homogeneity.