Pore size effect on the formation of polymer nanotubular structures within nanoporous templates

• Cylindrical nanoporous templates with various pore diameters were synthesized.
• Polymer nanotubes were obtained based on the template-assisted surface modification by nano-films.
• Wall thickness of the nanotubes was affected by the pore size of porous templates.

Nanotubular structures have recently received much attention due to their potential applications in biosensors, drug delivery systems, electronic devices, and many others. The layer-by-layer (LbL) deposition technique on 3-dimensional templates has been one of the most popular methods for the formation of nanotubular structures. Any size, shape, and composition template can be utilized and the desired amount of various materials can be readily incorporated within the thin film geometry with nanoscale control. Therefore, the morphological features of those materials can easily be tuned by varying the structural properties of templates. However, LbL deposition within a confined geometry actually shows somewhat different results due to the geometrical restriction, which is still not fully understood so far. In the present study, in order to investigate such a template effect on the LbL process, we utilized a cylindrical nanoporous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) structure as a template for the LbL process, yielding polymer nanotube structures. By varying the pore size of the porous templates, we determined the LbL process within porous structures was strongly governed by the geometrical characteristics of the utilized templates.

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