Photo-patternable hybrid ionogels for electrochromic applications

This work describes the development of photopatternable ionogels based on a hybrid organic/inorganic sol-gel material and both phosphonium (trihexyltetradecylphosphonium dicyanamide [P(6,6,6,14)][dca], trihexyltetradecylphosphonium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)-amide [P(6,6,6,14)][NTf2]) and imidazolium (1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tris(pentafluoroethyl) trifluorophosphate [emIm][FAP]) room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs). Ionogels were prepared via a two step process with the RTIL content varied between 40 and 80 w/w%, and characterised via Raman and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy. 1 and 2 photon polymerisation was performed on the hybrid ionogels using photolithography, resulting in three dimensional structures that were characterised using scanning electron microscopy. Electrochromic ionogels were prepared by addition of ethyl viologen dibromide (EV) to an ionogel containing [emIm][FAP] and hybrid sol-gel material. This composition was photo-polymerised on ITO electrodes by UV irradiation and subsequentially characterised via UV/Vis spectroelectrochemistry. It was also possible to fabricate a solid state electrochromic device based on EV and switch between the colourless (oxidised) and blue (reduced) forms using a perturbation signal of 1 V.