Micropatterned Polythiophene Nanofibers via Electrostatic Spinning and Photolithography
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0948-B05-15
Micropatterned Polythiophene Nanofibers via Electrostatic Spinning and Photolithography Chris Ik Asemota, Arvind Kumar, and Gregory A. Sotzing Polymer Program, University of Connecticut, Institute of Materials Science, University of Connecticut, 97 North Eagleville Road, Storrs, CT, 06269 ABSTRACT Herein we report the patterning of large conducting polymer nanofiber mats of the polyterthiophene precursor, into regular micron scale arrays of smaller mats each of which has the potential of being independently addressed. These fiber grids, micro mats of conducting polymer fibers, were prepared by the combined techniques of electrospinning, soft photolithography, and solid state electrochemical crosslinking. This study on patterning polyterthiophene is oriented toward processing and preparing conducting polymer structures in use as organic display technology. INTRODUCTION Conducting polymers have been intensively investigated because of their promising chemical and electrically reversible properties which include their ability to reversibly convert from insulating to semi-conducting states, electrochemomechanical response (actuators)1, electrochromism2, electroluminescence3, etc. Conducting polymers are also being applied and optimized towards developing cheaper and durable organic light emitting diodes and photo voltaic devices 4,5 as a result of their electron rich (donor) structure, hole transport capability and their electroluminescent properties. Fabrication of microscale dimension organic devices is a strong area for active research today and various lithographic and/or printing techniques are in use today for control of feature size in the submicron and particularly the nanoscale level in semiconducting industries and academia. Our group has previously reported processing of polymer precursor poly norbornene terthiophene, via conventional techniques like spin coating, and drop casting, and via electrostatic spinning with the formation of porous, thick mats of nanometer and submicron diameter fibers. It was also shown that the processed precursors were easily converted into conducting polyterthiophene, retaining structural integrity before and after conversion, and electrochromic behavior characteristic of polyterthiophene1 Functional groups tailored for photolithography were synthetically attached to the monomer prior to precursor polymer synthesis (unpublished work). This enables patterning of spin coated, drop cast and, now electrospun fibers of the precursor polymer, before generating the electro active conductive polymer. In this study, patterning by UV photo lithography of fiber mats on indium doped tinoxide glass substrate to create thousands of isolated micron size mats (pixels) is reported. Experimental detail, results of the patterning and cyclic voltammetry are provided.
EXPERIMENTAL Materials: All reagents were used without further purification. Chloroform and N, Ndimethylformamide (DMF) (Fisher Scientific and Aldrich) were filtered using 250 µm polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) filters bef
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