SearcharxivSearch

arXiv subjects

D. A. Bonnell

Publications and source records attributed to D. A. Bonnell.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Probing Spin-Charge Relation by Magnetoconductance in One-Dimensional Polymer Nanofibers

Polymer nanofibers are one-dimensional organic hydrocarbon systems containing conducting polymers where the non-linear local excitations such as solitons, polarons and bipolarons formed by the electron-phonon interaction were predicted. Magnetoconductance (MC) can simultaneously probe both the spin and charge of these mobile species and identify the effects of electron-electron interactions on these nonlinear excitations. Here we report our observations of a qualitatively different MC in polyacetylene (PA) and in polyaniline (PANI) and polythiophene (PT) nanofibers. In PA the MC is essentially zero, but it is present in PANI and PT. The universal scaling behavior and the zero (finite) MC in PA (PANI and PT) nanofibers provide evidence of Coulomb interactions between spinless charged solitons (interacting polarons which carry both spin and charge).

cond-mat.mes-hall

Controlled Fabrication of Nanogaps in Ambient Environment for Molecular Electronics

We have developed a controlled and highly reproducible method of making nanometer-spaced electrodes using electromigration in ambient lab conditions. This advance will make feasible single molecule measurements of macromolecules with tertiary and quaternary structures that do not survive the liquid-helium temperatures at which electromigration is typically performed. A second advance is that it yields gaps of desired tunnelling resistance, as opposed to the random formation at liquid-helium temperatures. Nanogap formation occurs through three regimes: First it evolves through a bulk-neck regime where electromigration is triggered at constant temperature, then to a few-atom regime characterized by conductance quantum plateaus and jumps, and finally to a tunnelling regime across the nanogap once the conductance falls below the conductance quantum.

cond-mat.mes-hall