Ionically Conductive Polyelectrolyte Multilayers for Microbattery Applications

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The alternating adsorption of polyelectrolytes and other multivalent organic andinorganic species has evolved in the past decade into a quickly developing new field ofmaterials science. The multilayer assembly technique, which involves the alternatingadsorption of oppositely charged species from dilute aqueous or mixed solvent solutions,has been used to create a number of systems with electrical, optical, dielectric andelectrochemical functionality. Ultrathin films with high uniformity are can be createdusing layer-by-layer assembly techniques. The ease of fabrication, ability to control filmstructure on a nanometer length scale, and the tunability of the final properties of the filmmake polyelectrolyte multilayer approaches interesting as components in micron scalebattery applications. Recent work from the Hammond research group has resulted in anumber of microfabrication techniques that allow the incorporation of functional polymermultilayers into micron scale devices. New work in this group has also led to orders ofmagnitude increases in the solid state ionic conductivity of polyelectrolyte multilayerfilms through the use of highly acidic polyions such as perfluorosulfonated ionomers, andthe incorporation of polyethylene oxide. The goals of this work are to develop newpolyelectrolyte multilayer systems with ionic conductivities suitable for thin film batteryapplications, to take advantage of the nanometer scale control that multilayer assemblyprocesses provide to develop electrolyte films with gradient electronic conductivities forbattery electrode components, and to apply nonlithographic microfabrication techniquesdeveloped in this group to create cheap, easily manufactured multilayer battery deviceson plastic, glass or paper substrates for plastic and paper thin film electronicsapplications.