Surface Modeling of Nanopatterned Polymer Films Obtained by Colloidal Templated Electropolymerization

Nanostructured polypyrrole surfaces are fabricated by a one step colloidal templating approach, involving simultaneous polystyrene bead deposition with the electropolymerization of the pyrrole monomer. Using response surface modeling, the influence of several experimental parameters was studied, following as response the resulted film's thickness and the nanopattern's surface density. Polystyrene beads of 100 nm were immobilized by the electropolymerization of pyrrole and the spheres were dissolved in tetrahydrofuran at room temperature. The obtained nanostructures were analyzed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and the results served to build the mathematical model (central composite face centered design, quadratic model) best describing the correlations between variables and responses. The obtained response surface model revealed the specific influence of each of the studied variables over the followed responses and it also allowed the controlled fabrication of nanopatterned surfaces.