Orienting polydiacetylene using aligned carbon nanotubes

Abstract

The orientation of conjugated polymers is key to enhance their optical and electronic properties. Here, a general and effective strategy is developed to orient conjugated polymers using aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The application of this strategy is demonstrated using chromatic polydiacetylene (PDA) as a molecular model. Due to the strong interactions between PDA and CNTs, oriented PDA microfibers are produced with the PDA backbones oriented along the direction being perpendicular to the CNT length. The impact of the thickness of the aligned CNTs, the monomer concentration, the degree of polymerization and the heating temperature on the degree of orientation of PDA is carefully studied. A high order parameter of 0.75 is achieved after optimization. The incorporation of aligned CNTs and the orientation of PDA enable considerably improved chromatic properties, i.e., a rapid color change upon heating.