Issue 5, 2014

Electrical conductivity of insulating polymer nanoscale layers: environmental effects

Abstract

As electronic devices are scaled down to submicron sizes, it has become critical to obtain uniform and robust insulating nanoscale polymer films. For that reason, we address the electrical properties of grafted polymer layers made of poly(glycidyl methacrylate), polyacrylic acid, poly(2-vinylpyridine), and polystyrene with thicknesses of 10–20 nm. It was found that layers insulating under normal ambient conditions can display a significant increase in conductivity as the environment changes. Namely, we demonstrated that the in-plane electrical conductivity of the polymer grafted layers can be changed by at least two orders of magnitude upon exposure to water or organic solvent vapors. Conductive properties of all polymer grafted films under study could also be significantly enhanced with an increase in temperature. The observed phenomenon makes possible the chemical design of polymer nanoscale layers with reduced or enhanced sensitivity to the anticipated change in environmental conditions. Finally, we demonstrated that the observed effects could be used in a micron-sized conductometric transducing scheme for the detection of volatile organic solvents.

Graphical abstract: Electrical conductivity of insulating polymer nanoscale layers: environmental effects

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 Sep 2013
Accepted
20 Nov 2013
First published
21 Nov 2013

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2014,16, 1977-1986

Electrical conductivity of insulating polymer nanoscale layers: environmental effects

V. Bliznyuk, Y. Galabura, R. Burtovyy, P. Karagani, N. Lavrik and I. Luzinov, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2014, 16, 1977 DOI: 10.1039/C3CP54020K

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