Structural, optical characteristics, and Poole–Frenkel emission in PMMA/PVAc/TBAI/milled MWCNTs polymer composites for optoelectronic applications

The current work objects to fabricate poly(methylmethacrylate)/poly Vinyl Acetate/tetrabutylammonium iodide/milled multiwalled carbon nanotubes polymer composites, PMMA/PVAc/TBAI/x wt% milled MWCNTs, as future blends to utilize in the optoelectronic field. The structure and morphology of the formed blends were investigated using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope techniques. The impact of MWCNTs amount on the linear and non-linear optical and emitted colors behavior of PMMA/PVAc/TBAI was studied. The transmittance reached its minimum value of 11–28% when the blend was loaded with 0.55 wt% MWCNTs. The lowest direct (4.49 eV) and indirect (4.30, 2.11) eV optical band gaps were obtained as the percentage of MWCNTs became 0.55 wt%. Due to the presence of MWCNTs, the refractive index of PMMA/PVAc/TBAI increases in the visible range. The highest values of ε r and ε i were obtained when the concentration of MWCNTs attained 0.55 wt%. Except for the blend doped with x = 0.22 at a lower wavelength range, all three non-linear optical parameters for PMMA/PVAc/TBAI polymer composites improved with increasing amounts of MWCNTs. The I–V properties and the conduction mechanism of all blends are investigated. In conclusion, the results showed that PMMA/PVAc/TBAI/x wt% milled MWCNTs polymer composites are promising polymer materials with remarkable optical and electric properties that could be used in different fields such as solar cells, photonic crystals, Bragg gratings and photocatalytic applications.