Preparation of Conducting Polymers by UHV-Compatible Methods

Abstract

In future potential applications of electrically conducting organic polymers as active or passive components in integrated electronic circuits of various sorts, it could be of enabling importance to have fabrication methods which are compatible with present-day and especially projected future semiconductor processing technology. The chemical, electrochemical and catalytic methods presently used may be difficult to apply in such a context. Despite the fact that we believe that the “best” applications of conducting polymers have yet to be discovered, we recently proposed that vacuum processing is a potentially attractive method for preparing thin films of conducting polymers with controlled electronic and optical properties [1]. One can envision the incorporation of conducting polymer thin films into what might be considered “integrated electronics”. In this context, e.g., thin conducting polymer films could possibly find use as the active components in integrated (bio)gas sensors with built-in logic on an (V)LSI chip.