Probing spin-charge relation by magnetoconductance in one-dimensional polymer nanofibers

Abstract

Polymer nanofibers are one-dimensional organic hydrocarbon systems containing conducting polymers where the nonlinear 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).