TY - JOUR
T1 - Remarkable self-organization and unusual conductivity behavior in cellulose nanocrystal-PEDOT: PSS nanocomposites
AU - Alam, Kazi M.
AU - Kar, Piyush
AU - Thakur, Ujwal K.
AU - Kisslinger, Ryan
AU - Mahdi, Najia
AU - Mohammadpour, Arash
AU - Baheti, Payal A.
AU - Kumar, Pawan
AU - Shankar, Karthik
PY - 2019/1/30
Y1 - 2019/1/30
N2 - Aqueous suspensions of cellulose nanocrystals were blended with Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) [PEDOT:PSS], and cast into thin films. The morphology, structure and electrical properties of the resulting nanocomposite thin films were thoroughly characterized. We found that the CNC–PEDOT:PSS blends self-organize into a layered vertical stack with a pitch of 100–200 nm while retaining a continuous percolation network for PEDOT. Atomic force microscopy, dynamic light scattering and multi-angle light scattering measurements confirmed the wrapping of polymer chains around the rod-like CNCs. The blended films exhibited improved molecular ordering of the PEDOT chains with concomitant improvement in the carrier mobility. The remarkable self-organization and enhanced structural order enabled the CNC–PEDOT:PSS blends to exhibit a high conductivity typical of PEDOT:PSS even when the content of the insulating CNCs in the nanocomposite was as high as 50 wt%.
AB - Aqueous suspensions of cellulose nanocrystals were blended with Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) [PEDOT:PSS], and cast into thin films. The morphology, structure and electrical properties of the resulting nanocomposite thin films were thoroughly characterized. We found that the CNC–PEDOT:PSS blends self-organize into a layered vertical stack with a pitch of 100–200 nm while retaining a continuous percolation network for PEDOT. Atomic force microscopy, dynamic light scattering and multi-angle light scattering measurements confirmed the wrapping of polymer chains around the rod-like CNCs. The blended films exhibited improved molecular ordering of the PEDOT chains with concomitant improvement in the carrier mobility. The remarkable self-organization and enhanced structural order enabled the CNC–PEDOT:PSS blends to exhibit a high conductivity typical of PEDOT:PSS even when the content of the insulating CNCs in the nanocomposite was as high as 50 wt%.
UR - http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10854-018-0409-y
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85058933108&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10854-018-0409-y
DO - 10.1007/s10854-018-0409-y
M3 - Article
SN - 0957-4522
VL - 30
SP - 1390
EP - 1399
JO - Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics
JF - Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics
IS - 2
ER -