1,617 research outputs found
Conductivity in organic semiconductors hybridized with the vacuum field
Organic semiconductors have generated considerable interest for their
potential for creating inexpensive and flexible devices easily processed on a
large scale [1-11]. However technological applications are currently limited by
the low mobility of the charge carriers associated with the disorder in these
materials [5-8]. Much effort over the past decades has therefore been focused
on optimizing the organisation of the material or the devices to improve
carrier mobility. Here we take a radically different path to solving this
problem, namely by injecting carriers into states that are hybridized to the
vacuum electromagnetic field. These are coherent states that can extend over as
many as 10^5 molecules and should thereby favour conductivity in such
materials. To test this idea, organic semiconductors were strongly coupled to
the vacuum electromagnetic field on plasmonic structures to form polaritonic
states with large Rabi splittings ca. 0.7 eV. Conductivity experiments show
that indeed the current does increase by an order of magnitude at resonance in
the coupled state, reflecting mostly a change in field-effect mobility as
revealed when the structure is gated in a transistor configuration. A
theoretical quantum model is presented that confirms the delocalization of the
wave-functions of the hybridized states and the consequences on the
conductivity. While this is a proof-of-principle study, in practice
conductivity mediated by light-matter hybridized states is easy to implement
and we therefore expect that it will be used to improve organic devices. More
broadly our findings illustrate the potential of engineering the vacuum
electromagnetic environment to modify and to improve properties of materials.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figure
Quantum Conductance Steps in Solutions of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes
We have prepared solutions of multiwalled carbon nanotubes in Aroclor 1254, a
mixture of polychlorinated biphenyls. The solutions are stable at room
temperature. Transport measurements were performed using a scanning--tunneling
probe on a sample prepared by spin--coating of the solution on gold substrates.
Conductance steps were clearly seen. An histogram of a high number of traces
shows maximum peaks at integer values of the conductance quantum , demonstrating ballistic transport at room temperature along the carbon
nanotube over distances longer than .Comment: 4 pages and 2 figure
Torsional response and stiffening of individual multi-walled carbon nanotubes
We report on the characterization of torsional oscillators which use
multi-walled carbon nanotubes as the spring elements. Through
atomic-force-microscope force-distance measurements we are able to apply
torsional strains to the nanotubes and measure their torsional spring constants
and effective shear moduli. We find that the effective shear moduli cover a
broad range, with the largest values near the theoretically predicted value.
The data also suggest that the nanotubes are stiffened by repeated flexing.Comment: 4 page
Theory of extraordinary optical transmission through subwavelength hole arrays
We present a fully three-dimensional theoretical study of the extraordinary
transmission of light through subwavelength hole arrays in optically thick
metal films. Good agreement is obtained with experimental data. An analytical
minimal model is also developed, which conclusively shows that the enhancement
of transmission is due to tunneling through surface plasmons formed on each
metal-dielectric interfaces. Different regimes of tunneling (resonant through a
''surface plasmon molecule", or sequential through two isolated surface
plasmons) are found depending on the geometrical parameters defining the
system.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Dimerization structures on the metallic and semiconducting fullerene tubules with half-filled electrons
Possible dimerization patterns and electronic structures in fullerene tubules
as the one-dimensional pi-conjugated systems are studied with the extended
Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. We assume various lattice geometries, including
helical and nonhelical tubules. The model is solved for the half-filling case
of -electrons. (1) When the undimerized systems do not have a gap, the
Kekule structures prone to occur. The energy gap is of the order of the room
temperatures at most and metallic properties would be expected. (2) If the
undimerized systems have a large gap (about 1eV), the most stable structures
are the chain-like distortions where the direction of the arranged
trans-polyacetylene chains is along almost the tubular axis. The electronic
structures are ofsemiconductors due to the large gap.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. B, pages 15, figures 1
Some considerations on the transmissivity of thin metal films
Copyright © 2008 Optical Society of America. This paper was published in Optics Express and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-16-22-17258 . Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law.As interest in plasmonics grows the optical properties of thin metal films becomes increasingly significant. Here we explore the
transmissivity of thin metal films at normal incidence, from the ultraviolet to microwaves, and show how, contrary to simplistic treatments, the microwave transmissivity may be much less than the optical transmissivity for films which are well below the skin depth in thickness. This arises because the film is acting as a zero order Fabry-Perot with very high reflectivity at each interface. The skin depth then becomes irrelevant for thin
metal films at microwave frequencies. We also note in passing that the expected exponential dependence on thickness at higher thicknesses has an asymptotic limit at zero thickness which may be as high as four times the input intensity
Huygens description of resonance phenomena in subwavelength hole arrays
We develop a point-scattering approach to the plane-wave optical transmission
of subwavelength metal hole arrays. We present a real space description instead
of the more conventional reciprocal space description; this naturally produces
interfering resonant features in the transmission spectra and makes explicit
the tensorial properties of the transmission matrix. We give transmission
spectra simulations for both square and hexagonal arrays; these can be
evaluated at arbitrary angles and polarizations.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Polarization tomography of metallic nanohole arrays
We report polarization tomography experiments on metallic nanohole arrays
with square and hexagonal symmetry. As a main result, we find that a fully
polarized input beam is partly depolarized after transmission through a
nanohole array. This loss of polarization coherence is found to be anisotropic,
i.e. it depends on the polarization state of the input beam. The depolarization
is ascribed to a combination of two factors: i) the nonlocal response of the
array due to surface plasmon propagation, ii) the non-plane wave nature of a
practical input beam.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, submitted to PR
- …