Cobalt and manganese carboxylates for metal oxide thin film deposition by applying the atmospheric pressure combustion chemical vapour deposition processElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. CCDC 1573318. For ESI and crystallographic data in CIF or other electronic format see DOI: 10.1039/c8ra02288g

Coordination complexes [M(O 2 CCH 2 OC 2 H 4 OMe) 2 ] (M = Co, 4 ; M = Mn, 5 ) are accessible by the anion exchange reaction between the corresponding metal acetates [M(OAc) 2 (H 2 O) 4 ] (M = Co, 1 ; M = Mn, 2 ) and the carboxylic acid HO 2 CCH 2 OC 2 H 4 OMe ( 3 ). IR spectroscopy confirms the chelating or μ-bridging binding mode of the carboxylato ligands to M( ii ). The molecular structure of 5 in the solid state confirms a distorted octahedral arrangement at Mn( ii ), setup by the two carboxylato ligands including their α-ether oxygen atoms, resulting in an overall two-dimensional coordination network. The thermal decomposition behavior of 4 and 5 was studied by TG-MS, revealing that decarboxylation occurs initially giving [M(CH 2 OC 2 H 4 OMe) 2 ], which further decomposes by M-C, C-O and C-C bond cleavages. Complexes 4 and 5 were used as CCVD (combustion chemical vapour deposition) precursors for the deposition of Co 3 O 4 , crystalline Mn 3 O 4 and amorphous Mn 2 O 3 thin films on silicon and glass substrates. The deposition experiments were carried out using three different precursor solutions (0.4, 0.6 and 0.8 M) at 400 °C. Depending on the precursor concentration, particulated layers were obtained as evidenced by SEM. The layer thicknesses range from 32 to 170 nm. The rms roughness of the respective films was determined by AFM, displaying that the higher the precursor concentration, the rougher the Co 3 O 4 surface is (17.4-43.8 nm), while the manganese oxide films are almost similar (6.2-9.8 nm). Complexes [M(O 2 CCH 2 OC 2 H 4 OMe) 2 ] (M = Co, Mn) were synthesized characterised regarding their thermal behaviour. They were used as precursors for deposition of rough Co 3 O 4 and smooth Mn 2 O 3 /Mn 3 O 4 thin films via the CCVD process.