Polymer Engineering and Science, Vol.43, No.4, 919-922, 2003
Electrochemically synthesized polythiophene films with self-organized microstructure
The microstructure of electronically conducting polythiophene (Pth) films synthesized electrochemically was studied using a scanning electron microscope. A self-organization phenomenon was observed in the films, which grew on a substrate with periodically arrayed holes of diameter less than 100 nm. Owing to the low bending stiffness and the high cohesive energy of nanowires, they combined in a self-assembling manner into an interesting array of bundle shapes, each bundle having about 20-100 bonded nanowires. The physical mechanism of this phenomenon is elucidated using the theory of elastic buckling.