Chemical reversability of the electrical dedoping of conducting polymers: An organic chemically erasable programmable read-only memory

Abstract

The loss of electronic conductivity of p -doped poly(3,4- ethylenedioxythiophene) at high electrical bias is shown to be chemically reversible upon redoping with iodine vapor. This provides further confirmation that the initial loss of conductivity arises from the injection-induced dedoping mechanism. Repeat "write-erase" cycles are possible, which gives a rudimentary organic chemically erasable programmable read-only memory. Transient measurements show that the write time (i.e., time for loss of conductivity) decreases from thousands of seconds just above the critical electric field of 50 kV cm-1 to millisecond well above this value but below the onset of electrochemical destruction. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.