Atom-Transfer Radical Polymerization on Zinc Oxide Nanowires

Atom-transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) has been used to modify the surface of ZnO nanowires with a variety of methacrylate and styrene polymers in a living fashion. The polymers show narrow polydispersities ( M n / M w = 1.10−1.19), and polymerization could be reinitiated after removal of the nanowires from solution. The surface coverage of covalently attached molecules (determined using UV−vis spectroscopy) was found to be 95 ± 0.9 Å/molecule. The polymerization reactions were analyzed using SEM, TEM, size-exclusion chromatography, and elipsometry. Carbon tubes with graphitic domains were isolated from the pyrolysis of polymer-coated wires and were characterized by SEM, TEM, and Raman spectroscopy.