Electrochemical depositions of palladium on indium tin oxide-coated glass and their possible application in organic electronics technology

The surface of palladium particles deposited on the (indium tin oxide) ITO coated glass by means of pulse electrolysis of 0.01 M PdCl₂ in dimethylformamide was investigated using atomic force microscopy. It was shown that at the potential value E = -1 V, pulse duration (τ_on) of 6 ms and pause duration (τ_off) of 300 ms the discrete cone-shaped nano-sized particles are formed, which almost uniformly cover the substrate s surface. The size of palladium particles increases with the increase in electrolysis duration. The absorption spectra in visible range of palladium deposited on ITO coincide with the spectrum of ITO. The study of the photoluminescence (PL) of ITO/Pd/Alq₃ structure [Alq₃ is aluminium tris(8-hydroxyquinoline)] confirmed that with the increase of palladium particles size the quenching of PL of the vacuum-deposited organic semiconductor Alq₃ takes place.