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Polymers
Special Issues
Polymer Thin Films: Synthesis, Characterization and Applications
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Polymer Thin Films: Synthesis, Characterization and Applications

A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Membranes and Films".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2024 | Viewed by 606

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Henryk Bednarski

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centre of Polymer and Carbon Materials, Polish Academy of Sciences, 34 Marie Curie-Skłodowska Str., 41-819 Zabrze, Poland
Interests: thin polymer films; optical properties; ellipsometry; soft matter theory; quantum magnetism

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Thin polymer films find important applications in many different industrial sectors, including organic electronics, optics, biotechnology and medicine, to name a few. In particular, they are used as active or passive layers in devices such as photovoltaic cells (PVCs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and various types of sensors. Thin films of conductive polymers are successfully used as transparent, flexible electrodes. In turn, in optical systems, they are used as lenses or mirrors, and in medical applications, they are used in drug delivery systems, as wound dressings, etc.

Their success is owed to their relatively low production costs, their wide range of specific polymer properties and the relative ease of processing and modifying them. However, their use in such important applications poses a number of challenges related to the appropriate stability of their key parameters. Moreover, currently there is a lot of pressure on the industry to switch to environmentally friendly production. This forced transformation imposes additional challenges on research, especially on the materials used in production to meet environmental protection requirements.

The aim of this Special Issue is to create a collection of the highest-quality scientific works devoted to the preparation and characterization of the properties of thin polymer films with high application potential. Therefore, contributions are invited in the form of original research and review articles in this broad interdisciplinary field.

Dr. Henryk Bednarski
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • polymers
  • thin films
  • organic electronics
  • sensors
  • microstructure

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 4009 KiB  
Article
Nanostructure-Dependent Electrical Conductivity Model Within the Framework of the Generalized Effective Medium Theory Applied to Poly(3-hexyl)thiophene Thin Films
by Henryk Bednarski, Ayman A. A. Ismail, Marcin Godzierz, Andrzej Marcinkowski, Muhammad Raheel Khan, Bożena Jarząbek, Barbara Hajduk and Pallavi Kumari
Polymers 2024, 16(22), 3227; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym16223227 - 20 Nov 2024
Viewed by 413
Abstract
One of the key parameters characterizing the microstructure of a layer is its degree of order. It can be determined from optical studies or X-ray diffraction. However, both of these methods applied to the same layer may give different results because, for example, [...] Read more.
One of the key parameters characterizing the microstructure of a layer is its degree of order. It can be determined from optical studies or X-ray diffraction. However, both of these methods applied to the same layer may give different results because, for example, aggregates may contribute to the amorphous background in XRD studies, while in optical studies, they may already show order. Because we are usually interested in the optical and/or electrical properties of the layers, which in turn are closely related to their dielectric properties, determining the optical order of the layers is particularly important. In this work, the microstructure, optical properties and electrical conductivity of poly(3-hexyl)thiophene layers were investigated, and a model describing the electrical conductivity of these layers was proposed. The model is based on the generalized theory of the effective medium and uses the equation from the percolation theory of electrical conductivity for the effective medium of a mixture of two materials. The results indicate a key role of the aggregate size and limited conductivity of charge carriers, mainly due to structural imperfections that manifest themselves as an increase in the number of localized states visible in the subgap absorption near the optical absorption edge. The critical value of the order parameter and the corresponding values of the Urbach energy, excitonic linewidth and band gap energy are determined. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymer Thin Films: Synthesis, Characterization and Applications)
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