1 Fundamentals of Conjugated Polymer Nanostructures
3 1 Fundamentals of Conjugated Polymer Nanostructures Thanh-Hai Le1 and Hyeonseok Yoon1,2 1Chonnam National University, Graduate School, Department of Polymer Engineering, 77 Yongbong-ro, Gwangju 61186, South Korea 2Chonnam National University, School of Polymer Science and Engineering, 77 Yongbong-ro, Gwangju 61186, South Korea 1.1 Introduction Earlier research on the design and development of materials related to conjugated polymers has attracted renewed interest, which has contributed to the materials being accepted as robust alternatives to their inorganic counterparts, therefore leading to large and substantial practical research efforts. Since the time when polyacetylene was discovered in 1977 by Hideki Shirakawa, Alan Heeger, and Alan MacDiarmid, many kinds of conjugated polymers have been developed, such as polypyrrole (PPy), polyaniline (PANI), polythiophene (PT), poly(p-phenylene vinylene) (PPV), and their derivatives [1]. Conjugated polymers contain a carbon backbone, which holds interchanging single (σ) and double (π) bonds that allow electrons to be delocalized, and thus contribute towards various electronic, electri- cal, electrochemical, and optical characteristics. Owing to the π-conjugated system coupled with the inherent characteristics of polymers, conjugated polymers have competitive properties over those of their inorganic counterparts, such as mild syn- thetic conditions, chemical diversity, structural flexibility, tunable electrical/optical properties, anticorrosion, and lightweight [2, 3]. Note also that, by converting bulk conjugated polymers into nanostructures, the resulting nano-dimensionality features can lead to beneficial properties, such as quantized energy level, enlarged surface area, more efficient and rapid doping/dedoping, and enhanced crystallinity [4–7]. Conjugated polymers have been hybridized with other functional materials to overcome their limitations in terms of conductivity, stability, and solubility.
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