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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.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 3 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Light: Science & Applications |
Volume | 13 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Acknowledgments:We thank Magnus Jonsson for helpful conversations. This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme PICOFORCE (grant agreement no. 883703) and UK EPSRC EP/L027151/1 and EP/S022953/1. R.C. acknowledges funding from the Royal Society (RGS\R1\231458). J.P. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62105369). Y.X. acknowledges support from the Cambridge Trust and CSC scholarship.
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Dive into the research topics of 'Metal to insulator transition for conducting polymers in plasmonic nanogaps'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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Seeing the invisible: Upconverting THz light from vibrations of quantum emitters
Chikkaraddy, R. (Principal Investigator)
31/03/23 → 30/03/24
Project: Research Councils