Proceedings of nanoGe Spring Meeting 2022 (NSM22)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.nsm.2022.232
Publication date: 7th February 2022
Polymer blends, which harness desirable properties from two or more complementary materials, have numerous applications in aerospace, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, electronics, and clean energy. In this work we investigate how polymer-polymer and polymer-solvent interactions affect the phase morphology and performance of polymer composites comprised of a majority non-conjugated polymer matrix component and a dispersed minority conjugated (semi-conductive) polymer additive. These blends are of interest for numerous organic electronic device applications as the matrix component can add mechanical durability, environmental stability and, in some cases, ionic conductivity. Meanwhile the minority conjugated component has been shown to retain optoelectronic performance at loading fractions as low as 1-10 wt%. Small angle and ultra-small angle neutron and X-ray scattering are particularly useful to characterize these composite blends and the self-assembled conjugated polymer components over length scales spanning from micrometers to fractions of a nanometer. We use small angle X-ray and neutron scattering and electrochemical analysis to develop a deep understanding of how blend morphology affects performance as a function of processing conditions and composition. This talk first provides a review of past work focused on blends of commodity homopolymers (i.e. polystyrene) and conjugated polymers (i.e. polythiophene derivatives). It will then cover more recent work focused on structured composite blends where the non-conjugated component is a block copolymer capable of self-assembly into mesoscale structures with long range structural order. These new structured composites include thermoplastic elastomers with high elasticity as well as water soluble block copolymers capable of forming templated hydrogel organic mixed ionic electronic conductors (OMIECs). In these cases, scattering experiments demonstrate that the block-copolymer templates can induce the organization of the conjugated polymer component over long length scales at significant loadings (up to 5wt%).
Primary support for this work was provided by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under award number DE-SC0019911
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