Investigation of the local physical properties of PEDOT:PSS by atomic force microscopy Matteo Sanviti, Angel Alegria and Jaime Martín Pérez Universidade da Coruña (UDC), Spain In the past decades, intrinsically conducting polymers have been an important research topic in the field of organic electronics as an alternative to silicon-based technologies. In this context, there has been a continuous demand for precise characterization tools, able to determine physical and chemical properties at nanoscale levels. These techniques must accurately measure and predict the connections among structure, properties, and dynamics. Following this idea, in this work, we present the use of atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques for studying the local properties of the conducting polymer Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesul fonate) (PEDOT:PSS), one of the most used organic conductors. PEDOT:PSS has emerged to be one of the most promising materials for flexible electrodes, finding applications in a wide range of devices, including OSCs, nanotransistors, supercapacitors, OLED, LCD, and wearable electronics 1 . In the present work, we investigated the surface nanostructure of pristine PEDOT:PSS thin films as long as their mechanical and electrical local properties by means of AFM-related techniques. We discuss our results by considering the possible disposition of the PEDOT/PSS phases in the material and also the intrinsic granular nanostructure. The level of information provided by the so-obtained results revealed to be of huge support for the characterization of more complex systems 2 . To bring an example, we present the characterization of samples treated by Solvent Vapor Annealing (SVA), in which the disposition at the surface of the relative conducting and non-conducting phases resulted drastically affected by the annealing conditions 3 . References 1. X. Fan, W. Nie, H. Tsai, N. Wang, H. Huang, Y. Cheng, R. Wen, L. Ma, F. Yan and Y. Xia, Advanced Science , 2019, 6 , 1900813. 2. M. Sanviti, A. Alegria and D. E. Martínez-Tong, Soft Matter , 2022, 18 , 4554–4564. 3. M. Sanviti, L. Mester, R. Hillenbrand, A. Alegría and D. E. Martínez-Tong, Polymer (Guildf) , 2022, 246 , 124723.
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