Optical and Morphology Changes upon Self-Assembly of Tetrasulphonated Copper Phthalocyanine and Polyaniline Particles on Zinc Oxide Nanorods

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods were grown on the pre-seeded substrate using a facile, solution route technique. The multilayer self-assembly of polyaniline (PAni) and tetrasulphonated phthalocyanine (TSCuPc) on ZnO nanorods was monitored by FTIR, UV-Vis SEM and XRD. Infrared spectrum of the assembled layer showed peaks centered at 1589cm-1and 1504 cm-1, confirmed the presence of quinoid and benzenoid structures of PAni, while peaks centered at ~1165cm-1and ~775cm-1 provided evidence for the presence of TSCuPc species. Absorption spectra of the assembled layer show broadened peaks at ~600nm and ~700nm affirmed the presence of PAni and TSCuPc molecules. A linear increase in the absorbance level at these wavelengths was also observed upon increasing the number of bilayers. The surface modification of the ZnO nanorods after self-assembly was confirmed through SEM. The edges of the ZnO nanorods was observed to change from sharp to dull upon employing layer by layer deposition of PAni and TSCuPc. XRD pattern of the assembled layer showed broadened peaks at low 2Θvalues associated to the amorphous nature of the emeraldine base of PAni. Even so, the diffraction peaks in XRD patterns of ZnO nanorods and ZnO/(TSCuPc-PAni) multilayer have been indexed as hexagonally wurtzite structure. The multilayer deposition of PAni and TSCuPc on the surface of ZnO as monitored by UV-Vis spectroscopy and confirmed by FTIR, XRD, and SEM provides a new way of anchoring dye molecules without carboxylic moieties on the surface of metal oxides