(137d) Vapor Deposition of Porous Polymer Materials

Porous polymer materials are useful in a range of applications including sensors, adhesives, and textiles. This talk will discuss the use of a modified initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) process to deposit porous polymer materials. During the modified iCVD process, unconventionally low substrate temperatures are used to transition the monomer vapor into solid microstructures. Polymerization occurs via the use of a thermally cleavable vapor-phase initiator and the excess unreacted monomer is sublimated. The benefits of our synthesis method are that no solvents are used and there are no surface tension effects such as de-wetting and clogging. In addition, the surface properties of these porous materials can be subsequently functionalized in situ using conventional initiated chemical vapor deposition. We will discuss several methods for patterning and cross-linking these materials, and we will demonstrate that asymmetric membranes with varying chemical functionalities and thicknesses can be fabricated. We will demonstrate that hierarchical structures with a bottom sponge layer and a top pillared layer can be fabricated in situ by varying processing conditions. We will also discuss new results that demonstrate that delivering the monomer at an oblique angle to the substrate leads to the synthesis of porous films with different morphological regions.