Surface roughness of electropolymerized polyaniline and sulfonated polyaniline layers

Abstract

In this work we investigated the surface morphology of electrodeposited polyaniline (PANI) and sulfonated polyaniline (SPAN) films grown directly on Si or on Au/glass substrates respectively, by applying constant or square wave potentials. Atomic force micrographs of samples with thicknesses in the range of 20 to 800 nm showed compact and granular surfaces with roughness varying between 3 and 30 nm. To investigate the evolution of roughness in a more quantitative way scaling analysis was applied, revealing characteristics of a self-affine fractal surface with exponents showing a dependence on the material (PANI or SPAN) and on the applied potential (constant or square wave).

Synthesis of new 2,5-di(thiophen-2-yl)furan-3-carbonitrile derivatives and investigation of the electrochromic properties of homopolymers and co-polymers with EDOT

“…When morphologies of homo and copolymer lms are investigated it can be seen that typical rough lms with small grains and spots were obtained via electropolymerization method. [49][50][51] If the lm roughness were taken into account; while poly2a has 40.74 nm RMS (root mean surface) roughness, poly2b has a roughness of 20.53 nm. On the other hand, the roughness of poly2a-co-EDOT and poly2b-co-EDOT are 73.2 nm 57.35 nm, respectively.…”