Electrochemical Deposition of Nanostructured (H₁-e) Layers of Two Metals in Which Pores within the Two Layers Interconnect

Abstract

Electrochemical deposition of metals from the H 1 hexagonal phase of nonionic lyotropic liquid-crystalline phases has been shown to produce films which contain regular arrays of uniform pores whose dimensions are determined by those of the micelles in the lyotropic phase used as the template. In this paper we report results for a study of the deposition of one H 1 -e metal film on top of another. Using H 1 -e films of palladium and rhodium as a model system we show, using electrochemical measurements, that the surface of the pores of the inner metal film are not blocked by deposition of an overlayer of the second mesoporous metal. By studying the evolution of the voltammetry of the mesoporous metallic bilayers as the surfactant is leached out of the pores over time, we conclude that the pores in the outer H 1 -e metal film connect to those in the inner layer so that we have a hexagonal array of continuous pores running though both metal layers in the structure.