Electronic and Optical Properties of Some Polysulfone-Polydimethylsiloxane Copolymers in Thin Films

Abstract

Polysulfone (PSF)-polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) block copolymers (PSF-b-PDMS) with various compositions were prepared by condensing chloro-terminated polysulfone oligomers with α, ω -dihydrogensilyl-polydimethylsiloxane in refluxing chlorobenzene solution in the presence of urea as a hydrogen chloride acceptor. The temperature dependences of the electrical conductivity and thermoelectric power (Seebeck coefficient) of copolymers were studied using thin films deposited from a dimethylformamide solution (spin coating method) onto glass substrates. It was established that the various copolymers showed typical semiconducting properties. Some correlations between these properties (activation energy, ratio of carrier mobilities, etc) and molecular structure of the copolymers were found. A model based on band gap representation was found to be suitable for explanation of the electronic transport mechanism through the studied copolymers in thin films. The study of the transmission and absorption spectra (in the spectral range from 300 nm to 1400 nm) evidenced that the indirect allowed optical transitions were predominant. The values of the optical energy band gap (ranged between 1.50 eV and 1.70 eV) are in agreement with values of width of the forbidden band calculated from the temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity.