The effect of chemistry and thermal fluctuations on charge injection barriers at aluminum/polyolefin interfaces
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Published version
Author(s)
Wang, Yiyuan
Laihonen, Sari
Unge, Mikael
Mostofi, Arash
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Charge injection at metal/polymer interfaces is a critical process in many technological devices, including high voltage capacitors and cables in which polyolefin materials, such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), are often used as insulation materials. We use simulations based on density-functional theory to study charge injection at aluminum/PE and aluminum/PP interfaces. Specifically, we investigate the influence of incorporating a variety of polar chemical impurities at the PE and PP chain ends on electron and hole injection barriers. Crucially, we account for the effect of thermal disorder by considering ensembles of thousands of interface structures obtained from ab initio molecular dynamics trajectories at 373 K. We show that the mean injection barrier can change by up to 1.1 eV for Al/PE and 0.6 eV for Al/PP, as compared to the pristine case, depending on which chemical impurity is introduced. We also show that the spread of injection barriers from thermal fluctuations also depends strongly on the chemistry of the impurity. The observed trends can be understood with a simple model based on thermal fluctuations of the dipole moment density associated with the chemical impurity at the interface. We further verify this model by considering larger interface models with lower impurity densities. Our results demonstrate that small chemical modifications, which may arise from oxidation, for example, have a significant influence on charge injection barriers in metal/polyolefin interfaces.
Date Issued
2023-09-28
Date Acceptance
2023-09-05
Citation
Journal of Applied Physics, 2023, 134 (12), pp.1-9
ISSN
0021-8979
Publisher
American Institute of Physics
Start Page
1
End Page
9
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Applied Physics
Volume
134
Issue
12
Copyright Statement
© 2023 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article/134/12/125301/2912661/The-effect-of-chemistry-and-thermal-fluctuations
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
125301
Date Publish Online
2023-09-25