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High‐Efficiency Ion‐Exchange Doping of Conducting Polymers

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Jacobs, Ian E. 
Lin, Yue 
Huang, Yuxuan 
Ren, Xinglong 
Simatos, Dimitrios 

Abstract

Abstract: Molecular doping—the use of redox‐active small molecules as dopants for organic semiconductors—has seen a surge in research interest driven by emerging applications in sensing, bioelectronics, and thermoelectrics. However, molecular doping carries with it several intrinsic problems stemming directly from the redox‐active character of these materials. A recent breakthrough was a doping technique based on ion‐exchange, which separates the redox and charge compensation steps of the doping process. Here, the equilibrium and kinetics of ion exchange doping in a model system, poly(2,5‐bis(3‐alkylthiophen‐2‐yl)thieno(3,2‐b)thiophene) (PBTTT) doped with FeCl3 and an ionic liquid, is studied, reaching conductivities in excess of 1000 S cm−1 and ion exchange efficiencies above 99%. Several factors that enable such high performance, including the choice of acetonitrile as the doping solvent, which largely eliminates electrolyte association effects and dramatically increases the doping strength of FeCl3, are demonstrated. In this high ion exchange efficiency regime, a simple connection between electrochemical doping and ion exchange is illustrated, and it is shown that the performance and stability of highly doped PBTTT is ultimately limited by intrinsically poor stability at high redox potential.

Description

Keywords

Research Article, Research Articles, conjugated polymers, doping, electrical conductivity, electrochemistry, ion exchange

Journal Title

Advanced Materials

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0935-9648
1521-4095

Volume Title

Publisher

Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/R031894/1, EP/L015889/1)
European Research Council (610115)
Royal Society (NF170736)
National Science Foundation (DMR‐1729737)
Office of Science (DE‐ AC02‐06CH11357)