Optical Spectra of p-Doped PEDOT Nano-Aggregates Provide Insight into the Material Disorder

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the optical spectra of p-doped PEDOT nano-aggregates reveal the degree of structural disorder, providing insights into how molecular arrangement impacts conductivity in this conductive polymer.

Contribution

It introduces a spectroscopic method to analyze the structural disorder in PEDOT nano-aggregates, linking optical properties to molecular arrangement and conductivity.

Findings

Optical spectra can quantify the structural disorder in PEDOT.

Molecular disorder correlates with the optical spectral features.

Insights into how processing affects polymer arrangement and conductivity.

Abstract

Highly doped Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) or PEDOT is a conductive polymer with a wide range of applications in energy conversion due to its ease of processing, optical properties and high conductivity. The latter is influenced by processing conditions, including formulation, annealing, and solvent treatment of the polymer, which also affects the polymer arrangement. Here we show that the analysis of the optical spectra of PEDOT domains reveals the nature and magnitude of the structural disorder in the material. In particular, the optical spectra of objects on individual domains can be used for the elucidation of the molecular disorder in oligomer arrangement which is a key factor affecting the conductivity.