Charge/Ion Transport Properties of Self-assembled Organic and Polymeric Materials

There are rising demands for developing electronics and energy storage system for more widespread uses in a diverse range of applications. This inevitably requires the development of new key materials with high electrochemical properties and good stability. Organic and polymeric materials are therefore expected to be an important elements for next generation electronics and energy storage system, due to their unique advantages such as sustainability, cost-efficiency, environmental friendliness and flexibility. Although organic and polymeric materials have various advantages compared to other conventional materials for energy storage system, the development of organic materials is still in its infant stage. Moreover, some of the drawbacks such as poor electrical conductivity, and slow redox kinetics also exist for enhancement of battery properties. One of the solution to enhance charge properties of organic and polymeric materials is determining and controlling their nano-/micro- structure. Structures of organic and polymeric materials are a crucial parameter in determining the efficiency of charge transfer. For development of sustainable and versatile electronics and energy storage system beyond current status, more fundamental structural studies are needed. Herein, in this thesis, investigation of charge transport properties of self-assembled organic and polymeric materials are described in the perspective of fundamental and application researches such as biosensors, electronics, and lithium batteries. In chapter 1, it gives a brief overview of energy storage system based on organic and polymeric materials. For a long time, organic materials have received much less attention compared to inorganic materials, mainly due of their poor stability and electrochemical performance. However, for the past decades, a lot of different organic molecules have been studied and exhibited great progress. Nowadays, some special candidates of organic materials show comparable or even superior electrochemical performance to the conventional inorganic cathodes. I present some candidates of organic materials for next generation electronics and energy storage systems in this chapter. In chapter 2, I have investigated the enhanced charge transport properties through nanostructured organometallic block copolymers. Organometallic block copolymers, poly(ferrocenyldimethylsilane-b-isoprene) (PFS-b-PI), containing electroactive ferrocene moieties are employed as electron mediators where the chemical cross-linking of PI chains greatly increases the stability of electrodes in physiological environments. Notably, catalytic current densities of the fabricated electrodes have proven be a sensitive function of the morphologies of electron mediators. Different nanoscale morphologies, i.e., bicontinous structure, nanowires, and nanoparticles, have been derived and the use of bicontinous PFDMS-b-PI confirms 2~50 times improved catalytic current response than the values obtained from other morphologies; the maximum catalytic current of glucose…