Template-directed electrodeposition

Template-Directed Controlled Electrodeposition of Nanostructure and Composition... 

For some applications, especially in the area of corrosion protection, electropolymerization of polyaniline onto active substrate is of interest. Lacroix and co-workers achieved this by first coating mild steel with a very thin PPy layer and then electrocoating polyaniline on top of this. Others have electrodeposited polyaniline-PPy composites on aluminum or steeP surfaces using oxalic acid electrolytes. A number of ring-substituted anilines have also been directly electrodeposited on active iron substrates using an oxalic acid electrolyte. To create novel nanostructures, polyanilines have been recently deposited on aligned carbon nanotubes or into the interstitial spaces of inverse opals to create novel ordered 3-D networks (Figure 4.2). Molecular templates (such as cyclodextrin) have also been added to electrode surfaces to facilitate electrodeposition of nanostructures. ... 

The Russell group has applied the template synthesis approach to nanoporous films generated from UV-treated PS-fo-PMMA copolymers [43, 147,233,235,241], which were pre-aligned perpendicular to the substrate by an electric field. Through direct current electrodeposition, they fabricated high-density vertical arrays of ferromagnetic cobalt nanowires (Fig. 10a) [43]. Through subsequent work, they also demonstrated the successful replication... 

Si nanowires have been grown in templates using a direct vapour-liquid-solid route [56]. The wires were grown in a 60 pm thick and 200 nm pore diameter alumina membrane. A thin layer (< 1 pm) of Au is electrodeposited to form the catalyst. The growth was carried out using a 5% mixture of SiH4 in H2 in an isothermal low pressure reactor at 500 °G. The nanowire has a defect-free core of Si with a 2-3 nm oxide layer and is capped with Au at both ends. It has a growth direction of [100]. 

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