Fabrication of Polypyrrole Nanowire and Nanotube Arrays.docVIP

Sensors 2005, 5, 245-249 sensors ISSN 1424-8220 ? 2005 by MDPI /sensors Fabrication of Polypyrrole Nanowire and Nanotube Arrays Fa-Liang Cheng*, Ming-Liang Zhang and Hong Wang Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan 523106, P. R. China * Corresponding author. E-mail: chengfl@ Received: 25 June 2004 / Accepted: 5 November 2005 / Published: 15 April 2005 Abstract: Large area highly uniform and ordered polypyrrole nanowire and nanotube arrays were fabricated by chemical oxidation polymerization with the help of a porous anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) template. Under 0.2 moL/L pyrrole (H2O) and 0.2 moL/L FeCl3 (H2O) pattern, polypyrrole nanowire arrays were obtained after 2.0 hours polymerization reaction in a two-compartment reaction cell. When the reaction was stopped after 15 minutes, polypyrrole nanotube arrays have been formed. The diameter, length and density of compositive nanowires and nanotubes could be controlled by parameters of AAO template. Keywords: polypyrrole, nanowire arrays, AAO template, chemical oxidation polymerization. 1. Introduction It is an unquestionable fact that nanomaterials possessed several unique properties superior to their bulky counterparts [1]. Many fabrication methods have been developed, but difficulty and challenge are still exist presently in preparing large area highly ordered nanoarray materials, which would be directly utilized in many devices. Among available approaches, template-based synthesis was well suited for producing arrays with uniform diameters and high aspect ratio wires [2]. Porous anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) templates especially attracted extensive interest because of its desirable characteristics, including highly ordered porous distribution, uniform and tunable pore diameters over a wide rang (~ 7 – 300 nm) and lengths (to 100 μm), good mechanical and thermal stability and well- developed