Studies on the photoelectric properties of crosslinked-poly(acrylamide co-acrylic acid) for photo detector applications

Abstract

The co-polymer, polyacrylamide co-acrylic acid-P(AM-AA) was prepared by chemical polymerization of acrylamide with acrylic acid in presence of methylene bisacrylamide as a crosslinker. The copolymer was analyzed using FTIR, XRD and DTA. The I-V characteristics of the copolymer were studied and proved that the recombination process is dependent on the presence of traps distributed in the energy gap. The results showed that the traps contribute significantly in the increased photosensitivity of the co-polymer. The behaviors of both dark and photoconductivity with temperature showed linear relations at different light intensities and proved an activated conduction with single activation energy. The activation energy (Ea) at different light intensity was found to follow Meyer Neldel rule (MN rule) and the intercept σo (pre factor) as well. The characteristic energy of exponential traps was found to be within 0.0134–0.009 eV, at different light intensities. The transient photoconductivity studies on the co-polymer confirmed the presence of traps. Where, the high photosensitivity and the presence of traps may contribute to the development of the improved performance of photo detectors. Keywords: Polyacrylamide co-acrylic acid, Photoconductivity, Meyer-Neldel rule