Bernal, Yesmin Panecatl, Alvarado, Joaquín, Juárez, Rodolfo Lima, Méndez Rojas, Miguel Ángel, de Vasconcelos, Elder Alpes, de Azevedo, Walter Mendes, Iniesta, Salvador Alcántara, and Cab, Julio Villanueva
This work reports the synthesis of MCM-41 powder via sol-gel and hydrothermal methods, which allows to obtain for the first time, thin films through spin-coating technique with good homogeneity on the silicon substrate, without making the deposition of the sol on a substrate, as well as the calcination to obtain the mesoporous film. Commercial MCM-41 was also added to this work for comparison purposes. Both synthesized and commercial MCM-41 powders were fully characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and nitrogen adsorption-desorption analysis. XRD diffraction results have shown the main peaks planes (100, 110, 200) of the synthesized MCM-41. This material presents a define geometry morphology, a surface area of approximately 981 m2/g, and pore size distribution in the range of 30 Ǻ, whereas TEM results show hexagonal ordered pore arrangement. Next, both MCM-41 powders were used to deposit thin films by spin-coating, which were characterized by SEM, XRD, EDX spectrum, and elemental map analysis. The XRD diffraction result shows that the (100) plane corresponds to MCM-41. According to SEM characterizations, MCM-41 thin films are homogeneous. This easy and cheap methodology for the preparation of MCM-41 thin films could be used to develop different kinds of electronic devices such as optical devices, photocatalysis solar cells, electrochromic, photochromic, photonics, sensors, biosensors, among many others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]