Imaging And Spectroscopy Of Conducting Polymer-fullerene Composite Materials

Since the development and optical study of conjugated (conducting) polymers it has become apparent that chain conformation and aggregation at the molecular scale result in complex heterogeneous nanostructured bulk materials for which a detailed insight into morphological, spectroscopic as well as optoelectronic properties and mechanisms is overwhelmingly difficult to obtain. Nanoparticles composed of the conjugated polymer poly (MEH-PPV) and nanocomposite nanoparticles consisting of MEH-PPV doped with 1-(3-methoxycarbonylpropyl)-1-phenyl-C61 (PCBM) were prepared as model systems to study these materials at the length scale of one to a few domains. The MEH-PPV and PCBM doped nanoparticles were analyzed by single imaging/particle spectroscopy (SPS) and revealed molecular scale information on the structure-property relationships of these composite materials. The data obtained from SPS were investigated in terms of spectral difference between doped and undoped nanoparticles. The doped nanoparticles are blue shifted by approximately 5-10 nm, have an additional blue shoulder, and show different vibronic structure than the undoped nanoparticles. Specifically, relative intensity of the 0-1 transition is lower than for the undoped nanoparticles. These data are indicative of differences in molecular order between both nanoparticle systems, detected at the molecular scale. In addition, the effect of electrical fields present in devices on the interfacial charge transfer properties was evaluated. Furthermore, these nanoparticles were incorporated into the lipid nanotubes to study the diffusion process of the single MEH-PPV nanoparticles inside the lipid nanotubes. Our data shows a clear proof of concept that diffusion of nanoparticles inside the hollow lipid nanotubes can be studied on a single particle basis, which will allow us to study diffusion processes quantitatively and mechanistically within the framework of developing a biocompatible drug and gene delivery platform