High Orderly Arranged Nanowires-Polymer Composite Material by Electrodeposition

Keywords:
nanowires, electrodeposition, composite

Abstract:
In this paper, we develop a new type of conductive film composed of nanowires and polymer. Unlike some other composite material by blending, the arrangement of nanowires in polymer is highly orderly in X, Y, and Z direction for anisotropic conductance. We used AAO templates to obtain silver and cobalt nanowires array by electrodrposition. And then the polymer was also deposited in the gaps between nanowires by electrodeposition after AAO removal. This is a lower-cost method with better uniformity to obtain anisotropic nanowire/polymer composite thick-film material compared with vapor deposition and capillary filling. The Co nanowires would keep parallel during fabrication by magnetic interaction between cobalt and applied magnetic field. We have performed the gaps with size less than 50 nm could be filled with the cationic epoxy resin by eletrodeposition. By applying potential with step waveform, the gaps between nanowires could be fully filled to form nanowire/polymer film. Fig. 1 showed the cross-sectional SEM of nanowire/polymer film from the electrodeposition of metallic nanowire and epoxy polymer. By adjusting eletrodeposition time and voltage, the polymer thickness could be the same as nanowire array. Therefore, no additional process to remove polymer covering nanowires for reducing contact electrical and thermal resistance in application of electrical package.

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Nanotech 2006 Conference Program Abstract