Sprecher
Beschreibung
Conducting polymers (CPs) are discussed in a huge variety of electronic devices including organic field effect transistors, batteries, actuators and (bio)electronic sensors. Compared to other conducting materials, CPs are light-weight, low cost, non-toxic, flexible and allow easy processing, low voltage operation (around 1 Volt) and low power consumption.
Here, poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) are presented as work-horses of our team due to their high conductivities and electrochromism which can be accessed by tailor-made doping. The doping states of these semiconductors can be controlled by electrochemical or chemical doping. A former study in our team showed that for P3HT an increase in conductivity over 6 orders of magnitude can be obtained as function of increasing electrochemical doping potential, giving maximum conductivities as high as 200 S/cm.1 Currently, we are working on using this electrochemical doping strategy to induce changes in chemical and physical properties of P3HT and PEDOT:PSS. Particularly interesting for the priority program SPP-2171 is our finding that also the wettability and the water uptake (sorption) dramatically change as function of the doping level.
Due to the fact that PEDOT:PSS is a mixed conductor, it also strongly depends on the relative humidity (r.H.) which makes it possible to build humidity-responsive bilayer actuators.2 The curvature of such humidity-triggered actuators can be explained by a combined study of rheology including wetting and water uptake studies
References
(1) D. Neusser, C. Malacrida, M. Kern, Y. Gross, J. van Slageren, S. Ludwigs, Chem. Mater., 2020, 32, 6003.
(2) C. Dingler, H. Müller, M. Wieland, D. Fauser, H. Steeb, S. Ludwigs, Adv. Mater., 2021, 33, 2007982.