Thin Solid Films 405 (2002) 23–28 0040-6090/01/$ - see front matter  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0040-6090 Ž 01 . 01609-1 Chemical vapor deposition of 6CuOØCu O films on fiberglass 2 Jorge Medina-Valtierra *, Jorge Ramırez-Ortiz , Victor M. Arroyo-Rojas , Pedro Bosch , a, b b c ´ J.A. de los Reyes c Centro de Investigaciones en Optica A.C., Unidad Aguascalientes, Prol. Constitucion No. 607, Fracc. Reserva Loma Bonita, a ´ Aguascalientes 20200, Mexico Facultad de Ciencias Quımicas, Universidad Autonoma de. Zacatecas, Km. 1 Carr. A Cd. Cuauhtemoc, Guadalupe, Zac. 98600, Mexico b ´ ´ ´ Universidad A. Metropolitana-I, Av. Michoacan y La Purısima s y n, Mexico City, D.F. 09340, Mexico c ´ ´ ´ Received 8 December 2000; received in revised form 17 July 2001; accepted 17 July 2001 Abstract To coat fiberglass with copper oxides, in particular with the paramelaconite structure 6CuOØCu O, we have used the chemical 2 vapor deposition (CVD) procedure of a copper precursor. The deposition of copper oxides was done using a horizontal-flow reactor, 2,4-pentanedionate copper(II) as precursor and O as carrier-reactant gas at several deposition temperatures. In order to 2 establish a correlation between experimental parameters and the resulting copper species, as well as film quality, the samples that were produced, were evaluated using techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), visible spectrophotometry, scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The most important result is that 6CuOØCu O thin films are obtained 2 over a short range of deposition temperatures. The film growth of this copper phase occurred in the w202x and w004x directions.  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Chemical vapor deposition; Fiberglass substrate; 6CuOØCu2O films; Cuprous oxide 1. Introduction Fiber-supported materials are widely used in a variety of applications including as catalysts. Notable examples include coated ceramic fibers that are used as macrocom- posites w1x, activated carbon fibers for the retention of SO w2x, metal oxides supported on active carbon fibers 2 to perform the catalytic reduction of NO w3x, and fiber- x supported perovskites to oxidize natural gas w4x. Copper oxides are compounds that can be used as electric conductors w5,6x or as catalytic species w7–9x. There are several examples over that last alternative. Oxidation of methanol is done on a surface of Cu , 1q Cu y ZnO w7x. CuO y ZSM-48 catalyzes supercritical 0 water oxidation of 2-chlorophenol w8x. Cu O or a mix- 2 ture of Cu O and CuO promotes the NO dissociation 2 2 w9x. Typically, three ways are used for preparing supported catalysts: impregnation, co-precipitation, and ion * Corresponding author. Tel. y fax: q52-4-976-0946. E-mail address: jmedinav@cioags.com.mx (J. Medina-Valtierra). exchange. More recently, novel methods have emerged to obtain monolayer dispersion of oxides on porous supports w10x or on metallic sheets w11x. Several techniques have been devised for the synthesis of metallic oxides films such as chemical deposition in a equilibrium solution w6x, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using metallorganic precursors w12x, spin-coating w13x, plasma spray deposition w11x, and application of the sol-gel method w14x. The CVD process provides thin films with a high uniformity of chemical composition w15x. Another char- acteristic of this technique is that it enables one ability to coat any geometric shape with a deposit of crystalline nanoparticles w16x. One advantage of CVD over other methods, is the ability to selectively deposit films onto a particular substrate area w17x. The objective of this present work is to design an experimental procedure for obtaining different copper phases on commercial fiberglass. We stress the para- melaconite phase series, that is deposited over a short temperature range and that it has been shown to have an interesting catalytic activity in a previous work w18x.