PARAMETER STUDY ON PLASMA-POLYMERIZATION OF LANTHANIDE DIPHTHALOCYANINE FILMS FOR ELECTROCHEMICAL DEVICES

Lanthanide diphthalocyanines have interesting properties on electrochemical and chemical redox reactions. It is however, difficult to use because of thier short device life. Plasma-polymerization attends to improvement thier device life. Yb-diphthalocyanine ($YbPc_2$) polymer film was deposited in a parallel plate electrodes-type RF plasma reactor. $YbPc_2$ was sublimed into the argon plasma, and polymer film was obtained on a substrate. Radio frequency was constant of 13.56MHz. Pressure of argon gas, sublimation rate of $YbPc_2$ and RF power were variable parameters depending on film quality. Surface of polymer films include a lot of sub-micron order lumps. It was indicated that size of lumps depends on polymerization degree controled by parameters. Size of lumps and polymerization degree are increased with RF power. However, by the high RF power over 40W, polymerization degree is decreased with RF power and surface of film is rough. In condition of RF power is high, polymerization will compete with etching of film. We obtained good films for electrochromic display with RF power of 20W, argon gas pressure of 8.0 Pa and sublimationrate of $1.2 \times 10$ mol/min, and good films for gas sensor with RF power of 30W, argon gas pressure of 10.6Pa and sublimation rate of $1.2 \times 10$ mol/min.