Electrical transport and EPR investigations: A comparative study for d.c. conduction mechanism in monovalent and multivalent ions doped polyaniline

A detailed comparative study of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) in conjunction with d.c. electrical conductivity has been undertaken to know about the charge transport mechanism in polyaniline (PANI) doped with monovalent and multivalent protonic acids. This work is in continuation of our previous work for further understanding the conduction mechanism in conducting polymers. The results reveal that the polarons and bipolarons are the main charge carriers formed during doping process and these cause increase in electrical conductivity not only by increase in their concentration but also because of their enhanced mobility due to increased inter-chain transport in polyaniline at high doping levels. EPR line asymmetry having Dysonian line shape for highly doped samples shows a marked deviation of amplitudes A/B ratio from values close to one to much high values as usually observed in metals, thereby support the idea of high conductivity at higher doping levels. The nature of dopant ions and their doping levels control the charge carriers concentration as well as electrical conductivity of polyaniline. The electrical conductivity has also been studied as a function of temperature to know the thermally assisted transport process of these charge carriers at different doping levels which has been found to follow the Mott’s variable range hopping (VRH) conduction model for all the three dopants used. The charge carriers show a change over from 3D VRH to quasi 1D VRH hopping process for multivalent ions at higher doping levels whereas 1D VRH has been followed by monovalent ion for full doping range. These studies collectively give evidence of inter-chain percolation at higher doping levels causing increase in effective mobility of the charge carriers which mainly seems to govern the electrical conduction behaviour in this system.