The role of dopant environment in electret-forming polymers

Abstract Poly-(2-vinylpyridine), P2VP, poly-(2-vinylquinoline), P2VQ, and their 4-vinyl isomers have been synthesized and chemically doped under different conditions. The materials have been characterized by a variety of techniques to establish synthesis-structure-doping correlations, which seem helpful clues in analysing current work on their electric properties. In particular, the dopant environment within one or more inequivalent sites inside the polymeric lattice plays an important role in transport mechanisms. To study this effect properly, it proved necessary to relate doping conditions to the structure of the polymer (molecular and supramolecular, macro- and micro-structure), which in turn depends on synthetic conditions. Only within these correlated steps could we find reproducible results.