In the mid-1980s Girolami began research on the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of thin films, especially of phases containing transition metals. Girolami studied the chemical design of new CVD precursors. He investigated copper(I) compounds for copper CVD, an approach that is now a key fabrication step for integrated circuits. His mechanistic studies of CVD processes involved transition metals, and these efforts have recently resulted in the development of low-temperature CVD to achieve the deposition of conformal thin films, in work carried out in collaboration with Professor John Abelson of Illinois' Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Most recently, he discovered a new class of highly volatile CVD precursors containing the aminodiboranate ligand.