Synthesis and thermal properties of two novel cobalt (II) Schiff's base complexes as precursors for coating cobalt oxide (Co3O4) thin film by a Plasma Enhanced Metallo-Organic Chemical Vapour Deposition

•Two novel cobalt (II) Schiff's base coordination complexes were synthesized and the single crystal XRD revealed them to possess orthorhombic crystal system.•Upon screening the cobalt complexes by TG/DTA, they found to exhibit sufficient volatility and thermal stability to be used as precursors in CVD to develop cobalt based thin films.•TG-transpiration technique yielded standard enthalpies of vapourisation values (ΔHovap) of 107.0 (±1.8) and 105.2(±2.1) kJ mol−1 for 1 and 2 which were evaluated using Clausius-Clapeyron relation.•The Co3O4 thin films were deposited at 350 °C using the precursor 2 by employing a plasma enhanced MOCVD.•A cauliflower like morphology was confirmed from SEM analysis of Co3O4 thin film. A band gap value of 2.23 eV was obtained using Kubelka-Munk function.