Electrical Conduction and Carrier Traps in Polymeric Materials

Better understanding of the fundamental electrical properties of polymeric materials is a key to their further progress in the practical application, not only as electrical insulating materials, but also as functional elements. In this paper, recent topics and their important results will be reviewed on electrical conduction and related problems including carrier traps and electrical breakdown in various polymers. At first, the electronic nature, e.g. photoconduction and electron transport are explained in insulating, semi-insulating, and conducting polymers. Also, interfacial phenomena at both metal-polymer and polymer-polymer interfaces, carrier traps (their physico-chemical nature) and impurity effects on electrical conduction are introduced with their results and experimental techniques. Finally, interesting topics on electrical breakdown related to polymer morphology will be given.