Citation:
Bardavid, Y. ; Goykhman, I. ; Nozaki, D. ; Cuniberti, G. ; Yitzchaik, S. Dipole Assisted Photo-Gated Switch in Spiropyran Grafted Polyaniline Nanowires. Journal of Physical Chemistry C 2011, 115, 3123-3128.
Abstract:
In this work we show dipole-assisted photogated switching by covalent grafting of photoactive molecules to conducting polymers. Photochromic spiropyran molecules were covalently attached to polyaniline (PANI) nanowires via N-alkylation reaction to the quinoic part of PANI. Upon irradiation with ultraviolet light spiropyran transformed to a large dipole containing molecule, merocyanine form. We show that this transformation leads to a substantial (ca. 2 orders of magnitude) increase in conductance of the photochromic PANI nanowires, which were evident by an increase in field-effect mobility and calculated band gap narrowing of the system. Finally, this transformation was found to be fully reversible with no significant photofatigue.