A new class of conducting polymers: fully conjugated gels of poly(octylthiophene).

Two categories of fully conjugated poly(octylthiophene) gels have been prep ared from well-characterized small molecules for various crosslink ratios, R, and for different crosslink functionalities, f. These gels swell and can be doped. Their statistical structure is determined by the variable alpha= f.R. Gel fraction, swelling ratio and proton-NMR specific structural param eter display master curves of variations versus a. The state-of deformation of gels swollen at equilibrium has been described. At temperatures lower t han 170 degrees C, the gels are weakly semi-crystalline. The states of crys tallinity, observed at various temperatures depend on a. The conductivity o f doped dry gels is governed by intermolecular hopping processes (model of hopping between conducting clusters) and is found to also depend on a. At r oom temperature, crystalline domains size, conducting domains size and macr oscopic,conductivity show a maximum for the gel prepared at alpha= 0.003, d isclosing that these quantities are correlated.