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Templateless Assembly of Molecularly Aligned Conductive Polymer Nanowires: A New Approach for Oriented Nanostructures
Author(s) -
Liu Jun,
Lin Yuehe,
Liang Liang,
Voigt James A.,
Huber Dale L.,
Tian Zhengrong R.,
Coker Eric,
Mckenzie Bonnie,
Mcdermott Matthew J.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.200390064
Subject(s) - nanowire , nucleation , materials science , nanotechnology , nanostructure , polymer , polyaniline , carbon nanotube , conductive polymer , substrate (aquarium) , chemistry , composite material , organic chemistry , polymerization , oceanography , geology
Although oriented carbon nanotubes, oriented nanowires of metals, semiconductors and oxides have attracted wide attention, there have been few reports on oriented polymer nanostructures such as nanowires. In this paper we report the assembly of large arrays of oriented nanowires containing molecularly aligned conducting polymers (polyaniline) without using a porous membrane template to support the polymer. The uniform oriented nanowires were prepared through controlled nucleation and growth during a stepwise electrochemical deposition process in which a large number of nuclei were first deposited on the substrate using a large current density. After the initial nucleation, the current density was reduced stepwise in order to grow the oriented nanowires from the nucleation sites created in the first step. The usefulness of these new polymer structures is demonstrated with a chemical sensor device for H 2 O 2 , the detection of which is widely investigated for biosensors. Finally, we demonstrated that controlled nucleation and growth is a general approach and has potential for growing oriented nanostructures of other materials.