Local coupling of charge and polymer dynamics

In this thesis we study the local dynamics of polymers, together with the coupling of these dynamics to the dynamics of electrical charge. This work is related to batteries and solar cells, both of which can be fabricated using polymers. The use of conventional solar cells is hindered by the expensive production processes that are inherent to solid state semiconductor technology. An economical alternative to the conventional solar cell is on that is based on polymers. Moreover, the processability and applicability of polymer solar cells is larger due to the ease with which one can tune the material properties of polymers. The energy conversion yield of this type of solar cells is limited by the low electrical conductivity of the polymer via static and dynamical disorder of the polymer chain. In part I of this thesis the coupling of the conductivity with the local molecular dynamics is investigated. Also, we investigate if the local static conformation can be derived from the vibrational spectrum in this type of material that often has a non-crystalline ordering in applications like solar cells...