A novel fractal characteristic method on the surface morphology of polythiophene films with self-organized nanostructure

Whether or not the surface morphologies of conducting polythiophene films with nanotubular structure having a fractal characteristic was investigated based on the scanning electrical microcopy (SEM) images with self-organized nanostructure. Fractal results indicated to be valued in the quantitative characterization of the surface morphologies of electrochemically synthesized polythiophene films. The fractal characterization of surface morphology depended mainly on the grizzly threshold on these SEM images. The relationship between the threshold and the fractal dimensionality can be expressed as a function. Therefore, the fractal dimensionality of surface morphology and nanostructure of these films might relate to the mechanical properties/behaviors or their electrochemically synthesized process. The fractal dimensionality was also illuminated from the physical point of view based on a binary image analysis. In addition, the effect factors and similarity rule of fractal dimensionality in those SEM images analyzers were discussed. The critical value to affect the determining fractal dimensionality was obtained. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.