Inorganic Nanomaterials with a Highly Fluorinated Polymer Ligand Dispersed in Fluorous Solvents

We report a study to develop 'highly fluorinated polymer-inorganic hybrid materials' and their dispersions in materials-and-environment-friendly fluorous solvents. Because of their limited interactions with conventional organic materials, the fluorous solvents are regarded to be advantageous processing media in constructing multi-layered organic electronic devices by solution processing. With the help of an efficient coupling reaction between amine-functionalized BaTiO3 (BTO) and poly(1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyl methacrylate) (PFDMA) chains modified with N-hydroxysuc-cinimide (NHS) ester group, it was possible to recover the highly fluorinated organic/inorganic nanocomposite, BTO-PFDMA. The dispersion of BTO-PFDMA with highly fluorinated negative-tone photoresist polymer, P(FDMA-r-GMA), in a hydrofluoroether solvent, HFE-7500 or PF-7600, showed sufficient dispersion stability and spin-casting properties. Thin films of polymer-inorganic composite materials were fabricated by spin-casting method, and patterns as small as 10 mu m could be built by UV exposure and rinse with a fluorous solvent.