Sol-gel deposited ZnO substrate for the modulation of electrodeposited PEDOT nanostructures and enhancement of electrochromic stability

In this work, a method was developed to modulate the nanostructure of PEDOT films by constructing a ZnO interfacial modification layer on a substrate. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results revealed that the PEDOT film electrodeposited on the ZnO interfacial modification substrate had larger pores and a more three-dimensional structure. The PEDOT film showed a good electrochromic effect, and the transmittance changed from 51.04 % initially to 43.2 % after 8000 s cycles in the three-electrode system, which maintains an initial transmittance of 84.05 %, reflecting a great improvement in stability compared with that of pure PEDOT, which maintains 42.45 % of the original transmittance. In addition, after cycling for 8000 s, the response time of the film decays very little (1.8 s for coloring and 1.9 s for bleaching to 2 s for coloring and 2.1 s for bleaching), which is a great improvement over that of pure PEDOT (1.6 s for coloring and 1.8 s for bleaching to 15 s for coloring and 16.1 s for bleaching). This method is simple and inexpensive and provides a new option for modulating the morphology and structure of conductive polymers, which is conducive to the development of the commercialization direction.