Electrochemical polymerization films of patterned polyaniline on Si(1 0 0) surface with microcontact printing

Patterned polyaniline (PANI) films on Si(1 0 0) surface were achieved by microcontact printing technique and electrochemical polymerization in the aqueous aniline solution. Optical microscope, atomic force microscopy (AFM), lateral force microscopy (LFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to examine the topography and properties of patterned PANI films. Optical microscope and AFM results showed that the PANI microstructure has regular pattern and clear boundary, while LFM and XPS results implied that this microstructure was completely covered by PANI. The data suggested that there are different polymerization rate in concordance with the different interfacial properties. That is to say, the interfacial properties control the rate of electrochemical polymerization, and the rate on the modified silicon surface is higher than that on the bare silicon surface. In our experiments, cyclic voltammetic method was employed to deposit patterned PANI films on octadecyltrichorosilane modified Si substrate.