Device Fabrication Based on Oxidative Chemical Vapor Deposition (oCVD) Synthesis of Conducting Polymers and Related Conjugated Organic Materials

Conducting polymers (CPs) combine electronic conductivity, optical transparency, and mechanical flexibility compatible with lightweight substrates. Due to these features CPs exhibit promising performance for a wide range of applications including electronic, optoelectronic, electrochemical, optochemical, and energy storage and harvesting devices. Fabrication of high-quality CPs thin film in a large scale is of high demand in multiple industrial sectors. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a promising approach for scale-up and commercialization of CPs in large-scale thin film applications by a roll-to-roll process. The CVD technique is a versatile deposition technique for fabricating CPs due to its unique combination of characteristics, including formation of conformal coatings, processing at low temperatures, solvent-free synthesis, uniformity of growth, mechanical flexible films, industrial scale-up, and substrate-independence. This review focuses primarily on the oxidative CVD technique for the fabrication of CPs and related conjugated polymers by emphasizing on their applications in devices.