Template-assisted nanostructuring polymers

A quite widely used method for the achievement of nanostructured polymers deals with the assistance of templates. Direct templating is particularly suited for getting mesostructures of organic and soft materials such as polymers that, in general, can be easily replicated by adopting hard templates which allow a great synthetic flexibility. 

Wire-shaped growth of nanostructured PPy with diameter <10 nm, has been obtained by electropolymerization at naturally occurring step defects and artificially formed pit defects of HOPG, in a template assisted electropolymerization where the size of the nanostmctures could be controlled by limiting the pyrrole polymerization time at anodic potentials [242], Electrochemical polymerization of pyrrole within the confines of anodized alumina templates and subsequent metal nanoparticles immobilization on the surface of polymer pillars has been used to make surfaces that show roughness on two independently controllable levels sub-microscopic roughness from polymer pillar dimensions and nanoscopic roughness from the appropriate size selection of metal NPs [243],... 

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