Speaker
Prof. Dr. Laure Kayser
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
University of Delaware (UD)
Host
Prof. Dr. Roland Bennewitz
Abstract
Controlled Polymerizations Applied to Organic Bioelectronics
Organic bioelectronics refers to the use of organic materials, particularly (semi)conducting π-conjugated polymers, in electronic devices specifically designed for biological applications such as analyte biosensing, monitoring physiological signals, repairing nervous injuries or even treating Parkinson’s disease. Currently, most bioelectronic devices rely on inorganic (semi)conductors that lack ionic conductivity, mechanical compliance, biocompatibility, and/or specificity, thereby limiting their translation. Polymers that are ionically- and electronically-conductive, i.e., organic mixed ionic-electronic conductors (OMIECs) could address these challenges. But, the commercial OMIEC currently used in the majority of studies, poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) still suffers from similar problems and has a proprietary composition, which prevents material/device optimization and functionalization towards specific applications in biology. To solve challenges in bioelectronics, my team focuses on novel OMIECs made by controlled radical polymerizations (e.g., reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer, RAFT) to precisely tune the properties and functionality of OMIECs in thin-film electronics and bulk conductive hydrogels. The first part of my talk will cover on progress in thin-film electronics. I will show how the precise tailoring of PSS in PEDOT:PSS led to electronic devices with higher performance and stability than commercial materials. I will also share a new synthetic strategy for making PEDOT:PSS from plastic waste. In the second part, I will shift to conductive hydrogels and discuss our work on photo- and thermo-responsive copolymers to achieve adaptive electronics deployed on skin, in vitro, or in vivo.