Electrolytic polymer active devices

Abstract

Since the discovery of electrical conduction in polyacetylene in 1977, the field of conducting polymers has progressed at a rapid and accelerating pace. It has been found that the conductivity of many of these polymers can be altered reversibly by electrochemical means. The electrolytic intercalation of ionic species into the polymer can be used to either dope an undoped material or compensate a material that has been previously doped. By varying the level of doping, the materials can be made to act as conductors, semiconductors or essentially insulators. This allows the fabrication of devices that effectively act as "electrolytic transistors" where the polymer "channel" conductivity can be adjusted by applying a potential to a counter-electrode in a liquid, gel or solid electrolyte. The basic operation of such transistors and related structures has been examined in the past [l] and interesting results on planar devices have recently been demonstrated in the literature [2,3].

Fabrication and modelling of screen-printed active electrolytic polymer devices

“…This means that there need only be about one dopant per chain to cause the conduction to saturate, leaving many dopant sites available to store cations. The effect of this multi-ion doping on the percolation conduction has been studied in more depth by the authors elsewhere [12].…”

“…Devices that effectively act as 'electrolytic transistors' can be fabricated using this effect where the polymer 'channel' conductivity is altered by applying a potential to a counter-electrode with a liquid, gel or solid electrolyte bridge to the channel. The basic operation of such transistors and related structures has been examined in the past [2], and interesting results on planar devices have recently been demonstrated [3][4][5][6]. Since the material is electrochromic, the state of the channel can be monitored optically by the change in the absorption spectrum.…”

“…This method uses a host polyelectrolyte chain, such as polystyrenesulfonic acid (PSSA), as a template for the growth of the conducting polymer, e.g. poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), which is then formed into a printable dispersion. This is shown for Bayer's 'Baytron P' in figure 1.…”

Organo-electronic technology for integrated high functionality devices

“…So that, finally we have simply JV ("-") 2 (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18) this corresponds to a probability distribution of / x 1 I W < 6 -19 ) which has expectation value and variance E(X)=CC (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20) Var…”

“…This extra level of stability is due to the further derealization of the electrons and, in general, the longer the length of a conjugated molecule, the larger the degree of stabilization. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. When the individual levels can no longer be discerned, the groups of levels are often referred to as "bands" in analogy to crystalline semiconductors.…”