All-dry, one-step synthesis, doping and film formation of conductive polypyrrole

Abstract

Oxidative chemical vapor deposition (oCVD) is an extremely effective method for solvent-free deposition of highly conductive polypyrrole films, where polymer synthesis, doping, and film formation are combined in a single step. Here we show that by carefully tuning the reaction parameters, namely the deposition temperature, the reactor pressure and the oxidant to monomer flow rate ratio, homogeneous polypyrrole films with a record conductivity of 180 S cm⁻¹ for a solvent-free method were produced. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, UV-vis spectrophotometry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and four-probe surface resistivity measurements were performed to gain insights into the relationship between different reaction conditions and the structure of oCVD-deposited polypyrrole, the development of defects, the film morphology and its physical properties.