Solution-cast films of polyaniline: Optical-quality transparent electrodes

Abstract

Optical-quality transparent conducting films of polyaniline (PANI) and of conducting polyblends of polyaniline with amorphous bulk polymers are described. Using functionalized protonic acids to induce solubility in common organic solvents, PANI and PANI polyblends can be cast from solution, in the conducting form, onto a variety of substrates. The resulting films are clear, and they combine low surface resistance with excellent transparency. By varying the thickness of the film and/or the volume fraction of PANI in the polyblend, the surface resistance can be controlled over an extraordinary broad range.

Nobel Lecture: Semiconducting and metallic polymers: The fourth generation of polymeric materials

“…Polyacetylene remains the prototype example. Figure 15 shows the correlation between the electrical conductivity ( ) and the draw ratio ( ) for iodine-doped polyacetylene films; the conductivity increases approximately linearly with the draw ratio (Cao et al, 1991). The slope of versus is approximately a factor of 2 larger for the thinner films (evidently the details of polymerization and/or doping result in more homogeneous, higher-quality material for the thinner films).…”

“…X-ray-diffraction studies of these drawn films exhibited a high degree of structural order that improves with the draw ratio; the structural coherence length perpendicular to the draw direction increases by about a factor of 2 as the films are drawn, from 10 nm at ϭ4 to 20 nm at ϭ15 (Cao et al, 1991). Consistent with the chain orientation and the improved structural order, the anisotropy ( ʈ / Ќ ) in the electrical conductivity increased with the draw ratio, approaching 250 as →15 (although ʈ increased dramatically as a function of , Ќ remains essentially constant).…”

“…This combination of high electrical conductivity and outstanding mechanical properties has been demonstrated for doped polyacetylene (Akagi et al, 1989;Tsukamoto 1990;Cao et al, 1991;Tokito et al, 1991;Yang and Heeger, 1996;Schimmel et al, 1998).…”

Characterization of low dielectric constant polyaniline thin film synthesized by ac plasma polymerization technique

“…Chemical methods and electrochemical polymerization of aniline on metallic electrodes is a common method for the preparation of polyaniline thin films. Many researchers [9][10][11][12], including Epstein and co-workers [13][14][15][16] and Kahol and co-workers [17,18], have prepared polyaniline by chemical methods and have carried out dielectric studies in the microwave region. While plasma polymerization technique has been employed for preparing polyaniline thin films, reports on the electrical properties of these films are scanty [19][20][21].…”

Transparent Conductive Films Fabricated from Polythiophene Nanofibers Composited with Conventional Polymers

“…Films made from conducting polymers such as polyaniline (PANI) composites [3][4][5][6][7], poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT/PSS) [8][9][10], and poly(3-alkylthiophene) (P3AT) [11] have also been studied. Such polymers have the advantages of being lightweight, highly flexible, and chemically stable.…”