A New Trend in the Sol-Gel Method and Thin Films from Metal Alkoxides

The progress in the field of electronic materials has been especially significant for applications involving a range of electrical properties. Its importance is increasing with the increasing demand for integrated circuits. The sol-gel technique has been used for many years, and the metal alkoxides have featured prominently as source materials. The method consist of making a homogeneous solution of the component metal alkoxides in a suitable solvent, usually the parent alcohol; and then causing the hydrolysis under controlled conditions to produce a gel containing the hydrated metal oxide. The gel is then dried, and fired to produce a ceramic or glassy material at a temperature much lower than that required by the conventional melting process. This project consists of important theoretical considerations, processing techniques and applications related to electrophoresis derived thin films. In the electrophoretic process a metal alkoxide solution is gelled through hydrolysis-polymerization and converted the gel thin layer to an oxide by heating at relatively low temperatures.