Copolymerization of divinylbenzene and 4-vinylpyridine using initiated chemical vapor deposition for surface modification and its applications

Abstract

This research investigates the copolymerization of divinylbenzene and 4- vinylpyridine into organic thin films that exhibit conformal, stable, and uniform surface properties. Thin films were grown using initiated chemical vapor deposition, a variant of hot-wire deposition using a chemical initiator. Readily variable monomer flow into the active stage of the reactor allows for directly tunable copolymer composition. This tunability extends onto the control of material surface properties of a substrate that is coated with these organic thin films. The conditions of iCVD allow a variety of delicate substrates to be coated and for the full retention of pendant functional groups. This leads to their application to many industries including water desalination membranes, microfluidics, photolithography, sensors, among many others. The focus of this paper is on the facilitated control of surface modification using iCVD techniques and some of its future applications are also discussed.