Templating Organic Semi-conductors via Self-Assembly of Polymer Colloids
Raffaele Mezzenga,1
Janne Ruokolainen,1
Glenn H. Fredrickson,1
Edward J. Kramer,1*
Daniel Moses,2
Alan J. Heeger,2
Olli Ikkala3
A route for producing semiconducting polymer blends is demonstrated
in which a doped pi-conjugated polymer is forced into a
three-dimensionally continuous minor phase by the self-assembly of
colloidal particles and block copolymers. The resulting cellular morphology can be viewed as a high-internal phase polymeric emulsion. Compared with traditional blending procedures, this process reduces the
percolation threshold for electrical conductivity by a factor of 10, increases the conductivity by several orders of magnitude, and
simultaneously improves thermal stability. Following this route, new
applications can be envisaged for semiconducting polymer blends that
require only minimal concentrations of doped pi-conjugated polymer.
1 Materials Research Laboratory,
2 Institute of Polymers and Organic Solids,
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
3 Department of Engineering Physics and Mathematics
and Center for New Materials, Helsinki University of Technology, FIN-
02015 HUT, Espoo, Finland.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
edkramer{at}mrl.ucsb.edu
