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Quantitative analysis of the impact of disorder on the structural and electrical properties of polymer fibers

MRS Advances volume 8, pages 386–391 (2023)Cite this article

Abstract

Quantifying disorder in physical systems can provide unique opportunities to engineer-specific properties. Here, we apply a methodology based on the approach pioneered by Bragg and Williams for metal alloys to quantify the disorder characterizing polymer fibers including polyaniline (PANI), polyaniline-polycaprolactone (PANI-PCL), and polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF). Both PANI and PVDF possess electrical properties such as conductivity and piezoelectric response that find a wide range of applications in energy storage and tissue engineering. On the other hand, the mechanical properties of polymer fibers can be tuned by varying the concentration of PANI and PCL during synthesis. Here, we demonstrate that it is possible to control the amount of disorder characterizing a fiber, which provides a route to engineering desired values for specific material properties. The resulting measure of disorder is shown to have a direct relationship to Young’s modulus, band gap, and specific capacitance values.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

This work was performed with partial support from the National Science Foundation (DMR-2003581, S.D and R.M.) and Western Michigan University. Analysis was performed using hardware received through the NVIDIA Academic Hardware grant program (R.M.). S.H would like to acknowledge supported by the Portage Health Foundation (PHF) Graduate Assistantship and the Michigan Tech Finishing Fellowship.

Funding

Funding was provided by National Science Foundation (Grant Number DMR-2003581).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, 49008, USA

    R. A. Makin & S. M. Durbin

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, 49931, USA

    S. N. Hanumantharao & S. Rao

  3. Health Research Institute, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, 49931, USA

    S. Rao

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  1. R. A. Makin
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  3. S. Rao
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Correspondence to R. A. Makin.

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Conflict of interest

R.M. and S.D. have a pending patent application on tuning polymer properties through disorder.

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Makin, R.A., Hanumantharao, S.N., Rao, S. et al. Quantitative analysis of the impact of disorder on the structural and electrical properties of polymer fibers. MRS Advances 8, 386–391 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43580-022-00368-2

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