Full view of single-molecule force spectroscopy of polyaniline in oxidized, reduced, and doped states

The macroscopic mechanical properties of polyaniline (PANI) lie mainly on two factors, the structure of molecular aggregations of polymers and the mechanical properties of a single polymer chain. The former factor is well revealed; however, the latter is rarely studied. In this article, we have employed atomic force microscopy-based single-molecule force spectroscopy to investigate the mechanical properties of a kind of water-soluble PANI at a single-molecular level. We have carried out the study comparatively on single-chain-stretching experiments of oxidized, reduced, and doped PANI and obtained a full view of the single-chain elasticity of PANI in all these states. It is found that oxidized and reduced PANI chains are rigid, and the oxidized PANI is more rigid than the reduced PANI. Such a difference in single-chain elasticity can be rationalized by the molecular structures that are composed of benzenoid diamine and quinoid diimine in different proportions. The doped PANI has been found to be more flexible than the oxidized and reduced PANI, and the modified freely jointed chain parameters of doped PANI are similar with those of a common flexible-chain polymer. The results have explained the molecular-level origin of the outstanding flexibilities of materials made of doped PANI.