Swift heavy ion irradiation effects on structural, optical properties and ac conductivity of polypyrrole nanofibers

Polypyrrole (PPy) nanofibers have been synthesized by interfacial polymerization method and irradiated with 160 MeV Ni12+ ions under vacuum with fluences in the range of 10(10)-10(12) ions/cm(2). High-resolution transmission electron microscopy results show that upon swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation the PPy nanofibers become denser. The crystallinity of PPy nanofibers increases upon SHI irradiation, while their d-spacing decreases. Upon SHI irradiation, the polaron absorption band gets red-shifted indicating reduction in the optical band gap energy of the irradiated PPy nanofibers. The indirect optical band gap energy is decreased as compared to corresponding direct optical band gap energy. The number of carbon atoms per conjugation length (N) and carbon atoms per cluster (M) of the SHI-irradiated PPy nanofibers increase with increasing the irradiation fluence. Fourier transform infrared spectra reveal the enhancement in intensity of some characteristic vibration bands upon SHI irradiation. The thermal stability of the PPy nanofibers is enhanced on SHI irradiation. The charge carriers in both pristine and irradiated PPy nanofibers follow the correlated barrier hopping mechanism. Scaling of ac conductivity reveals that the conduction mechanism is independent of the SHI irradiation fluence.