Directed Assembly of Conducting Polymer Using Electrostatically Addressable Template

Jun Lee, Plastics Engineering; Carol Barry, Plastics Engineering; Joey Mead, Plastics Engineering

The use of electrostatically addressable templates for the directed assembly of conducting polymer is the focus of this work. Conducting polyaniline doped by camphor sulfonic acid and dissolved in dimethylformamide was selectively assembled on the negative electrodes. The use of electric fields causes the deposition of polyaniline on the patterned template to occur rapidly in one-step and avoids complicated chemistry methods, such as the template polymerization of a conductive polymer and functionalization of the substrate surface. Results indicated that the deposition process of polyaniline was controlled by the deposition time and the applied voltage. This work provides a promising nanomanufacturing approach for cost effective and high performance flexible nanoelectronics and biosensors.