Automated system for combinatorial synthesis and high-throughput characterization of polymeric sensor materials

In this thesis, an automated system for combinatorial synthesis and high throughput investigation of electrical properties of conductive polymers is described. The equipment provides a polymerization of defined mixtures of monomers into a thin layer on the addressed work electrodes of a direct electrode array. It is followed by high-throughput screening of current voltage characteristics according to the developed measurement protocol. The electrodes with an interdigital configuration were specially designed for simultaneous fourand two point conductance measurements. Programmed addition of analytes provided automated investigation of influence of gases on the synthesized polymers. The results of experimental test of the system are presented with investigation of materials for gas sensors. This equipment can be used for synthesis and electrical characterization of conductive polymers and multilayer polymer structures, for development of chemical sensors, bio-sensors, organic electronic devices and other thin film functional structures. The present work describes the whole design and realization of the electropolymerization in details, measurement and analysis concept, set-up, software, measurement protocol. The developed measurement protocol provides fast but comprehensive investigations. The software includes three parts, i) software for electropolymerization, ii) software for measurement and iii) data analysis. The equipment has been verified by the investigation and optimization of sensors for gaseous hydrogen chloride based on synthesized conductive polymers (aniline based). The developed sensors can be used in fire alarm systems.