CONDUCTIVITY OF ORGANIC COMPOSITES WITH 3-DIMENSIONAL AND 2-DIMENSIONAL CRYSTALLINE NETWORKS .1. CONTINUITY OF THE CONDUCTING PHASE

Several reticulate doped polymers (i.e. conducting composites consisting of an insulating polymer matrix and of a minute amount of crystalline conducting charge-transfer complex organized in a 3- or quasi-2-dimensional network) are investigated in terms of the continuity of the network. The analysis of the temperature dependences on the conductivity for different concentrations of the conducting phase, the discussion of the probability of continuous linkages formation and the comparison of the experimentally achieved very high conductivities with theoretically allowed maximal values demonstrate that, already at 0.3% content of the conducting phase, continuous pathways are formed. The effectiveness of the network formation approaches that predicted by the Clausius-Mossotti approximation. A mechanism yielding highly connective networks is proposed, based on the specific conditions of the complex crystallization allowing the formation of very thin filamentary connections.