Intrinsic electrical conductivity of nanostructured metal-organic polymer chains

Abstract

One-dimensional conductive polymers are attractive materials because of their potential in flexible and transparent electronics. Despite years of research, on the macro- and nano-scale, structural disorder represents the major hurdle in achieving high conductivities. Here we report measurements of highly ordered metal-organic nanoribbons, whose intrinsic (defect-free) conductivity is found to be 104 S m−1, three orders of magnitude higher than that of our macroscopic crystals. This magnitude is preserved for distances as large as 300 nm. Above this length, the presence of structural defects (~ 0.5%) gives rise to an inter-fibre-mediated charge transport similar to that of macroscopic crystals. We provide the first direct experimental evidence of the gapless electronic structure predicted for these compounds. Our results postulate metal-organic molecular wires as good metallic interconnectors in nanodevices.

Detailed mechanism of aniline nucleation into more conductive nanofibers

“…Although, PAA is known as an electroactive polymer [42], the lower conductivity of pure PAA hydrogels can be significantly enhanced by aniline polymerization. On other side, the interconnected 3D Pani nanofibers facilitate the electron transfer rather than 1D type due to higher electron density [18]. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is well known to provide information on the interface of the electrode surface during the modification process.…”

“…In our opinion, the used undercooling and not-shaken situation lead the synthesis system from strong heterogeneous nucleation to limited one to produce 3D interconnected nanofibers. The higher electron density of corresponding nanofibers establishes higher electrical character of prepared composite hydrogels [18].…”

Periodic chain of disks in a magnetic field: bulk states and edge states

“…In many cases, low-dimensional nanostructures have unusual electronic properties, see, e.g., results of recent experiments with highly ordered organometallic nanoribbons, whose intrinsic (defect-free) conductivity is found to be three orders of magnitude higher than that of macroscopic crystals [1]. It should be mentioned that in many cases there is no adequate mathematical model of the corresponding nanosystem, and the theoretical description is complex.…”

Exfoliated graphite flakes as soft-electrodes for precisely contacting nanoobjects

“…The next example (summarized in figure 3) describes the use of our procedure to create electrical contacts on platinum-based MMX nanoribbons [25,26]. Platinum-based MMX polymers are dimetallic subunits with two platinum centres connected by four bridging dithioacetate ligands and an iodine atom bridging the dimetallic units (inset of figure 3a).…”

“…Contrary to the case of nanotubes, whose instrinsic electrical resistance is similar to that of electrode-nanotube contacts, the intrinsic resistance of these MMX ribbons is much higher than that of the contacts. As quasi-one-dimensional conductors, the electrical resistance and the shape of the IV curve of the MMX nanoribbons are mainly dictated by the density of defects in their atomic structure present during the assembly process [25,26].…”