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Metallic transport in polyaniline

Nature volume 441, pages 65–68 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Despite nearly three decades of materials development, the transport properties in the ‘metallic state’ of the so-called conducting polymers are still not typical of conventional metals1,2,3,4,5,6,7. The hallmark of metallic resistivity—a monotonic decrease in resistivity with temperature—has not been obtained at temperatures over the full range below room temperature; and a frequency dependent conductivity, σ(ω), typical of metals has also not been observed. In contrast, the low-temperature behaviour of ‘metallic’ polymers has, in all previous cases, exhibited an increase in resistivity as temperature is further decreased, as a result of disorder-induced localization of the charge carriers1,2,3,4. This disorder-induced localization also changes the infrared response such that σ(ω) deviates from the prediction of Drude theory5,6,7. Here we report classic metallic transport data obtained from truly metallic polymers. With polyaniline samples prepared using self-stabilized dispersion polymerization8, we find that for samples having room-temperature conductivities in excess of 1,000 S cm-1, the resistivity decreases monotonically as the temperature is lowered down to 5 K, and that the infrared spectra are characteristic of the conventional Drude model even at the lowest frequencies measured.

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Figure 1: Diagram of the self-stabilized dispersion polymerization of polyaniline.
Figure 2: Temperature dependence of resistivity, ρ(T).
Figure 3: Optical spectra of high-conductivity PANI-CSA.
Figure 4: X-ray diffraction patterns of the SSDP PANI-CSA samples.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Bechgaard for discussions. K.L. was supported at PNU by the National Program for Nanoscience and Technology of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation. S.-H.L. acknowledges financial support at AU from the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation through the Hyper Structured Organic Materials Research Center in Seoul National University. Work at UCSB was supported by the National Science Foundation.

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  1. Kwanghee Lee and Suck-Hyun Lee: *These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Pusan National University, 609-735, Busan, Korea

    Kwanghee Lee, Shinuk Cho & Sung Heum Park

  2. Center for Polymers and Organic Solids, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, 93106-5090, USA

    Kwanghee Lee & A. J. Heeger

  3. Department of Molecular Science and Technology, Ajou University, 442-749, Suwon, Korea

    Chan-Woo Lee & Suck-Hyun Lee

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  1. Kwanghee Lee
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  2. Shinuk Cho
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Correspondence to Kwanghee Lee or Suck-Hyun Lee.

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Lee, K., Cho, S., Heum Park, S. et al. Metallic transport in polyaniline. Nature 441, 65–68 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04705

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