ABSTRACTThe fabrication, structure and electrical properties of new electrically conductive Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films of polyaniline and polypyrrole have been investigated. Polyaniline in its emeraldine-base form was mixed with stearic acid (PAN-B/SA) to produce stable films at the air-water interface (5/1 or 10/1 mole ratio of PAN-B/SA). These films were then transferred into multilayer films which were found to exhibit conductivities of about 1 S/cm upon doping with hydrochloric acid. The alkyl chains of the stearic acid molecules were found to be distributed randomly throughout the LB film thereby exerting a minimal influence on the electrical properties of the polyaniline phase. In addition to this mixed monolayer approach, a novel method of fabricating highly conductive polypyrrole LB films has been developed. This method is based on the sequential exposure of ferric stéarate LB films to hydrogen chloride (HC1) gas and pyrrole vapor. Each of these two solid state reactions was found to impart dramatic chemical and structural changes to the film. Polypyrrole LB films with conductivities as high as 5 S/cm were produced via this process. The electrical and optical properties of films made by both techniques were examined in order to elucidate their structure/property relationships.
