In operando monitoring templated electrodeposition of Pt films with hexagonal pore structure by GISAXS

Description

Liquid crystal (LC) templated electrodeposition is a facile and versatile method to electrodeposit metal films with highly structured mesopores. These mesopores are essential to increase surface area for electrocatalysis and sensing. Previous studies showed that LC templating allowed to tailor pore size, shape, and orientation of the pores in the deposited film. Generally, these studies suggest that the pores in the film inherit the structure of the LC template.
However, little is known about the interplay between the kinetics of the templated deposition, i.e. the transition from the structure of the LC template to the resulting film. A better understanding of this interplay requires in operando monitoring structural changes during the templated electrodeposition process.
As a part of my PhD, we characterized the surface structure of Au substrates during templated electrodeposition of Pt with operando Grazing Incidence Small Angle X-Ray Scattering (GISAXS).
We were able to identify a series of structural changes at the film surface: A loss of preferential alignment of the LC, followed by the formation of vertically aligned pores. These findings potentially lead to more effective electrodeposition routines and films with higher surface area.

Period	15 Jul 2022
Event title	8th Regional Symposium on Electrochemistry of South-East Europe and 9th Kurt Schwabe Symposium: RSE-SEE 2022
Event type	Conference
Conference number	8
Location	Graz, AustriaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International