Polymer Side Chain Modification Alters Phase Separation in Ferroelectric-Semiconductor Polymer Blends for Organic Memory

Gregory M Su; Eunhee Lim; Andrew R Jacobs; Edward J Kramer; Michael L Chabinyc

doi:10.1021/mz5005647

Polymer Side Chain Modification Alters Phase Separation in Ferroelectric-Semiconductor Polymer Blends for Organic Memory

ACS Macro Lett. 2014 Dec 16;3(12):1244-1248. doi: 10.1021/mz5005647. Epub 2014 Nov 19.

Authors

Gregory M Su¹, Eunhee Lim², Andrew R Jacobs², Edward J Kramer², Michael L Chabinyc²

Affiliations

¹ Materials Department and ‡Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106, United States.
² Materials Department and Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106, United States.

PMID: 35610833
DOI: 10.1021/mz5005647

Abstract

Side chain modification of a semiconducting polythiophene changes the resulting phase separation length scales when blended with a ferroelectric polymer for use in organic ferroelectric resistive switches. The domain size of the semiconducting portion of blends of poly[3-(ethyl- 5-pentanoate)thiophene-2,5-diyl] (P3EPT) and poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (PVDF-TrFE) in thin film blends are smaller than previously reported and easily controllable in size through simple tuning of the weight fraction of the semiconducting polymer. Furthermore, P3EPT has a relatively high degree of crystallinity and bimodal crystallite orientations, as probed by wide-angle X-ray scattering. Resistive switches fabricated from blends of P3EPT and PVDF-TrFE show memristive switching behavior over a wide range of polythiophene content and good ON/OFF ratios.