Mechanical Properties of the Intrinsically Conductive Polymer Poly(3,4- Ethylenedioxythiophene) Poly(Styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT/PSS)

Abstract

In recent years there have been vast efforts to establish organic electronic devices. A key property of such devices is the possibility to fabricate them on flexible substrates. As the layers are mechanically stressed during bending, the knowledge of mechanical properties of the materials used will become very important. In this research the mechanical properties of the intrinsically conductive and widely used polymer PEDOT/PSS were investigated using a micro tensile test setup. The tensile tests showed values for Young’s Modulus in the range from 1 GPa to 2.7 GPa, for the tensile strength in a range from 25 MPa to about 55 MPa and for the total strain at break between 3% and 5%, all of them depending on relative humidity.

Conducting polymer-hydrogels for medical electrode applications

“…Electrodeposited CPs are generally not soluble and the deposited films must be physically removed from the substrate to obtain free-standing samples. Nevertheless, several studies on various CP samples reported that the tensile moduli of CPs are in the 10 8 -10 9 Pa range [128][129][130][131][132][133][134][135][136][137][138]. Recently, micro and nanoindentation have been used to provide data on CP mechanics where the coating is assessed on the metallic substrate [14,139].…”

Physical surface and electromechanical properties of doped polypyrrole biomaterials

“…For comparison, a modulus of 1.5 GPa has been reported for free-standing, 32 mm thick benzenesulfate doped PPy films in air [31]. The elasticity of these films reduces to z z0.7 GPa after immersion in electrolyte for 1 h. Other conducting polymers such as poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) doped with poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT/PSS) have a modulus ranging from 1.5 to 3 GPa for freestanding films in air, where the value decreases with an increasing humidity range of 25-65% [32,33]. For modulus values determined directly in electrolyte, PPy free-standing films have typical values of 0.1-0.8 GPa [34][35][36], which depend on the voltage applied to the polymer during the tensile test measurement.…”

Stretchable electronics: materials, architectures and integrations

“…stays constant during stretching until foot breakage: this is of course a very interesting feature for stretchable microelectronics applications. The maximum stretchability from our measurements was 270% for l a /L 0 = 4.2, a rather impressive level 50 times larger than for PEDOT : PSS films [73]. This is of course a very interesting feature for stretchable electronics applications.…”