Conductive polymer

About: Conductive polymer is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 21817 publications have been published within this topic receiving 692491 citations. The topic is also known as: intrinsically conducting polymer & ICP.

Charge-transport model for conducting polymers

Abstract: The growing technological importance of conducting polymers makes the fundamental understanding of their charge transport extremely important for materials and process design. Various hopping and mobility edge transport mechanisms have been proposed, but their experimental verification is limited to poor conductors. Now that advanced organic and polymer semiconductors have shown high conductivity approaching that of metals, the transport mechanism should be discernible by modelling the transport like a semiconductor with a transport edge and a transport parameter s. Here we analyse the electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient together and determine that most polymers (except possibly PEDOT:tosylate) have s = 3 and thermally activated conductivity, whereas s = 1 and itinerant conductivity is typically found in crystalline semiconductors and metals. The different transport in polymers may result from the percolation of charge carriers from conducting ordered regions through poorly conducting disordered regions, consistent with what has been expected from structural studies.

Carbazole-based polymers for organic photovoltaic devices

Abstract: Polymers based upon 2,7-disubstituted carbazole have recently become of great interest as electron-donating materials in organic photovoltaic devices. In this tutorial review the synthesis of such polymers and their relative performances in such devices are surveyed. In particular structure–property relationships are investigated and the potential for the rational design of materials for high efficiency solar cells is discussed. In the case of the 2,7-carbazole homopolymer it has been found that electron acceptors other than fullerenes produce higher energy conversion efficiencies. To get around possible problems with the build-up of charge density at the 3- and 6-positions and to improve the solar light harvesting ability of the polymers by reducing the bandgap, ladder- and step-ladder type 2,7-carbazole polymers have been synthesised. The fully ladderised polymers gave very poor results in devices, but efficiencies of over 1% have been obtained from a step-ladder polymer with a diindenocarbazole monomer unit. Donor–acceptor copolymers containing 2,7-carbazole donors and various electron-accepting comonomer units have been prepared. An efficiency of 6% has been reported from a device using such a copolymer and by suitable choice of the acceptor comonomer, polymers can be designed with potential theoretical power conversion efficiencies of 10%. While such efficiencies remain to be obtained, the results to date certainly suggest that carbazole-based polymers and copolymers are among the most promising materials yet proposed for obtaining high efficiency organic solar cells.

FEATURE ARTICLE Conducting Polymer Composites

Abstract: Conducting polymer composites become increasingly important for technical applications. In this article, the resulting electrical properties of such materials are illustrated by a variety of experimental examples. It is shown that the combined mechanical, thermal and electrical interaction between the filler particles via their electrical contacts and the surrounding polymer host matrix are responsible for the properties of the composite material. A short review is given of the theoretical background for the understanding of the electrical transport in such materials. The arrangement of the filler particles and the resulting conductivity can be described either by percolation or by effective medium theories. It can also be related to different types of charge carrier transport processes depending on the internal composite structure. Special emphasis is given to the microstructure of the filler particles such as size, hardness, shape and their electrical and thermal conductivities. A detailed analysis of the physics of the contact spots and the temperature development during current flow at the contact is given. It is shown that the polymer matrix has a strong influence on the electrical conductivity due to its elastic properties and the response to external thermal and mechanical stimulation. Strong changes in the electrical conductivity of conducting polymer composites can be realized either by thermal stimuli, leading to a positive and negative temperature coefficient in resistivity, or by applying mechanical stress. By using nonlinear fillers an additional degree of functionality can be achieved with conducting polymers.