Nanostructured Semiconducting Polymer Inorganic Composites for Opto-Electronic Applications

Abstract

Recent developments on nanostructured conducting polymer-inorganic composites systems have receieved considerable research interest owing to their unique synergestic properties compared with their individual bulk counter parts which make them promising candidates for a broad spectrum of high technological applications such as in energy conversion, electronic devices, storage, sensors, actuators, memory devices, and biomedical devices. Nanostructured conducting polymers possess unique features such as high specific surface area, high charge carrier concentration, high electrical conductivity, high mechanical flexibility, light weight, solution processability and printability over a large area which make them favourable for their high tech applications. Among the conducting polymers, polyanilline, poly(3,4-ethylene dioxy thiophene), poly(N-vinylcarbzole) are receiving much importance due to their low cost, environmental stability and unique doping mechanism. Conversely, semiconducting inorganic metal oxide such as zinc oxide and titania nanomaterials have emerged as an area of intense research interest motivated by their potential applications in electronics, non-linear optics, and magnetic devices due to their low band gap, small crystalline size and unique opto-electronic properties. In this perspective, studies on the development and applications of semiconducting polymer-inorganic metal oxide nanocomposite are interesting since it is expected to exhibit synergistic properties arising from the molecular level mixing of conducting polymer and inorganic counter parts.