Ion-track membranes of poly(vinylidene fluoride); Etching characteristics during conductomeric analysis

Nuryanthi, N.*; Yamaki, Tetsuya; Koshikawa, Hiroshi; Asano, Masaharu; Sawada, Shinichi; Hasegawa, Shin; Maekawa, Yasunari; Katsumura, Yosuke*

We report here how conditions of the conductometric analysis affected the etching characteristics of 25 m-thick poly(vinylidene fluoride) film irradiated with 450 MeV Xe ions. The etching was performed in a 9 mol dm aqueous potassium hydroxide solution at 80C in a conductometric cell. According to the scanning electron microscope observations, the ion-track membrane obtained with an applied AC voltage of 1.0 V had the surface pores of 16820 nm in diameter. On the other hand, the etching without an applied voltage gave the approximately two-thirds smaller pores. The conductomeric etching would provide a higher degree of freedom for controlling the pore diameter.