Conductive Polymer–Inorganic Hybrid Materials through Synergistic Mutual Doping of the Constituents

Polymer-matrix-based inorganic–organic hybrid materials are at the cutting edge of current research for their great promise of merging properties of soft and hard solids in one material. Infiltration of polymers with vapors of reactive metal organics is a pathway for postsynthetic blending of the polymer with inorganic materials. Here, we show that this process is also an excellent method for fabricating conductive hybrid materials. Polyaniline (PANI) was infiltrated with ZnO and the initially insulating polymer was converted to a PANI/ZnO hybrid with conductivities as high as 18.42 S/cm. The conductivity is based on a synergistic effect of the constituting materials, where the inorganic and the polymeric fractions mutually act as dopants for the counterpart. The process temperature is a very important factor for successful infiltration, and the number of applied infiltration cycles allows tuning the level of conductivity of the resulting PANI/ZnO.