Synergistic Effect of Thermal Activation and Plasma: Low-Temperature, Universal Synthetic Approach for Crystalline Mesoporous Metal Oxide

Crystalline mesoporous metal oxides have received much attention due to various applications in catalysis, sensors, and energy storage materials. The soft-templating method, which combine molecular self-assembly with sol-gel chemistry, is an effective way for synthesis of mesoporous metal oxide with crystalline phase. However, conventional soft-templating method should use high-temperature calcination for template removal and inorganic crystallization, which restrict the integration on a plastic substrate for flexible electronics. Here, we introduce an innovative low-temperature synthetic approach for crystalline mesoporous metal oxide by utilizing the synergistic effect of thermal activation and plasma. Thermal activation-assisted plasma (TAP) induces the crystallization of inorganic precursors in addition to effective template removal at low temperature (150 °C). We synthesized various metal oxides with crystalline mesoporous phase on flexible polyimide substrate.