Photoconductive Behavior of the PPV/RGO Composites: Insights of Charge Transfer Process.

The paper deals with a study of composites based on poly(p‐phenylenevinylene) (PPV) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) in terms of photoconductivity and photocurrent (PC) dynamics in charge‐discharge cyclic processes. The explanation for the photoconductive behavior is built with the support of DeVore and Onsager theories. Scanning samples in both directions involves charge transport, to and from, available energy states called defect centers. The existence of these centers is confirmed by a decrease in the composite bandgap caused by the RGO localized states which are situated slightly above the first HOMO level in the PPV bandgap. The contribution of RGO to the photoconductive properties of PPV is revealed through a photocurrent value with two orders of magnitude higher than for PPV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]