Abstract

Conjugated polymers are promising material candidates for many future applications in flexible displays, organic circuits, and sensors. Their performance is strongly affected by their structural conformation including both electrical and optical anisotropy. Particularly for thin layers or close to crucial interfaces, there are few methods to track their organization and functional behaviors. Here we present a platform based on plasmonic nanogaps that can assess the chemical structure and orientation of conjugated polymers down to sub-10 nm thickness using light. We focus on a representative conjugated polymer, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), of varying thickness (2-20 nm) while it undergoes redox in situ. This allows dynamic switching of the plasmonic gap spacer through a metal-insulator transition. Both dark-field (DF) and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectra track the optical anisotropy and orientation of polymer chains close to a metallic interface. Moreover, we demonstrate how this influences both optical and redox switching for nanothick PEDOT devices.

Details

Title
Metal to insulator transition for conducting polymers in plasmonic nanogaps
Author
Xiong, Yuling 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Chikkaraddy, Rohit 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Readman, Charlie 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Hu, Shu 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Xiong, Kunli 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Peng, Jialong 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Lin, Qianqi 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Baumberg, Jeremy J. 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 University of Cambridge, NanoPhotonics Centre, Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, Cambridge, UK (GRID:grid.5335.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2188 5934) 
 University of Cambridge, NanoPhotonics Centre, Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, Cambridge, UK (GRID:grid.5335.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2188 5934); University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, School of Physics & Astronomy, Birmingham, UK (GRID:grid.6572.6) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 7486) 
 University of Cambridge, NanoPhotonics Centre, Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, Cambridge, UK (GRID:grid.5335.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2188 5934); National University of Defense Technology, College of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies and Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Novel Nano-Optoelectronic Information Materials and Devices, Changsha, China (GRID:grid.412110.7) (ISNI:0000 0000 9548 2110) 
 University of Cambridge, NanoPhotonics Centre, Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, Cambridge, UK (GRID:grid.5335.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2188 5934); University of Twente, Hybrid Materials for Opto-Electronics Group, Department of Molecules and Materials, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, Molecules Center and Center for Brain-Inspired Nano Systems, Faculty of Science and Technology, Enschede, Netherlands (GRID:grid.6214.1) (ISNI:0000 0004 0399 8953) 
Pages
3
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
Springer Nature B.V.
e-ISSN
20477538
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2908008753
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2024. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.