An Investigation into Nanowire Formation via AFM, Neutron Scattering and various other methods

The formation of nanowire structures from poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) in solution is of great interest in fields such as vapour sensing and organic solar cells. Being able to control formation, deposition and characterise these nanowires is therefore of great interest to maximise the potential of these devices. To this end this research investigates the growth of these nanowires in solution via small angle neutron scattering, and ultra-violet visible spectroscopy.
The ability to align these nanowires on a solid substrate is also of interest, as well as obtaining large quantities of aligned and densely packed nanowires. Therefore this thesis has investigated optimal processing conditions, deposition methods and post processing methods to get the optimal P3HT nanowires and nanowire alignment. Various methods of characterising the nanowires, such as ultra-violet visible spectroscopy, small angle neutron scattering, atomic force microscopy etc. have been used to characterise the nanowires that were created.
These nanowires were also tested for use in applications such as vapour sensing, by use in water-gated transistors and the effects of using nanowires, rather than a thin film of P3HT was also investigated.
In summary, various techniques for the production and optimisation of P3HT nanowire thin films were investigated, the growth of which was also carefully studied. Finally the nanowire films were characterised using various methods and applications tested to determine how to use nanowires to optimise these applications, namely for the purpose of vapour sensing.