Sulfur functionalized diamondoid phosphines enable building nanocomposites interfacing sp3-carbon and gold nanolayer

Abstract

Interfacing metal frameworks with carbon-based materials is attractive for the bottom-up construction of nanocomposite functional materials. The stepwise layering of difunctionalized diamantanes and gold metal from physical and chemical vapor deposition for the preparation of nanocomposites inverts the common preparation of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) and self-assemblies –where the metal is introduced first–, and as such delivers metal surfaces with modified properties from the sp3-carbon core. However, appropriate diamondoid candidates for such approach are rare. By the mild chemical vapor deposition of the metal-organic complex MeAuPMe3, gold coating is achieved on a diamantane S=P(V) sulfide primary phosphine diamantanol 2. This later generates sulfides and polysulfides surface rearrangement and provide a suitable substrate for metal-organic nanocomposite formation from a fully-dry vapor process, with the advantage, in contrast to the P(III) primary phosphine phosphinodiamantanol 1, of being resistant to uncontrolled oxydation at phosphorus during the physical vapor deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) processing.