Development of Supramolecular Metallogel Derived from Nickel(II)-Salt and Adipic Acid: An Effective Material for Microelectronic Semiconducting Device Application

An approach for the ultrasonication based synthesis of nickel(II)-metallogel was devised by employing nickel(II)-acetate salt and adipic acid at room temperature in dimethylformamide (DMF) medium. The metallogel was shown to be mechanically stable and self-healing using rheological and thixotropic analyses. Ni(II)-metallogel was described by its stone-like morphological features using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) study. The main chemical components of the metallogel have been verified by the energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) elemental mapping measurement. Additionally, the electronic device based on the metal-semiconductor (MS) junction demonstrates the electrical conductivity because of supramolecular arrangement of the Ni(II)-metallogel. Extensive testing was done to determine the metallogel’s electrical properties. There was an investigation on the synthesised Ni(II)-metallogel based device’s semi-conductive properties, and a Schottky barrier diode was fabricated successfully. Graphical Abstract Adipic acid is used as a low molecular weight gelator to synthesize a metallogel in presence of Nickel(II)-ion, which offers semiconducting nature of the metallogel and it has been further verified with electronic device characterization.