Negative to Positive Magnetoresistance transition in Functionalization of Carbon nanotube and Polyaniline Composite

Electrical resistivity and magnetoresistance(MR) in polyaniline(PANI) with carbon nanotube(CNT) and functionalized carbon nanotube(fCNT) composites have been studied for different weight percentage down to the temperature 4.2K and up to magnetic field 5T. Resistivity increases significantly in composite at low temperature due to functionalization of CNT compare to only CNT. Interestingly transition from negative to positive magnetoresistance has been observed for 10wt% of composite as the effect of disorder is more in fCNT/PANI. This result depicts that the MR has strong dependency on disorder in the composite system. The transition of MR has been explained in the basis of polaron-bipolaron model. The long range Coulomb interaction between two polarons screened by disorder in the composite of fCNT/PANI, increases the effective on-site Coulomb repulsion energy to form bipolaron which leads to change the sign of MR from negative to positive.Comment: 5 pages, 8 figures; typos adde

Tuning magnetoresistance and electrical resistivity by enhancing localization length in polyaniline and carbon nanotube composites

We report low temperature electrical resistivity and magnetoresistance (MR) measurements of conducting polyaniline (PANI) and multiwalled-carbon nanotube (MWCNT) composites. We have used an in-situ oxidative polymerization method to synthesize hydrochloric acid-doped PANI composites with MWCNT weight percentages of 0, 5, 10 and 15. The temperature dependence of resistivity is studied from room temperature to 4.2K and analysed by a Mott variable range hopping (VRH) model. The resistivity increases from 1.1 x 10 -3 m at 300K to 65.75 m at 4.2 K, almost four orders of the magnitude change with temperature for pure PANI. Whereas the PANI composite with 15% MWCNTs shows less variation from 4.6x10 -4 to 3.5x10 -2 m. The huge change in resistivity is due to the localization of charge carriers in the presence of disorder. At 4.2K MR shows transition from positive to negative with higher MWCNT loading. Samples with 5 and 10% MWCNTs show positive MR, whereas the 15% MWCNT loaded sample shows negative MR. The positive and negative MR are discussed in terms of the wave function shrinkage effect and quantum interference effect on VRH conduction

Field emission properties and strong localization effect in conduction mechanism of nanostructured perovskite LaNiO3

We report the potential field emission of highly conducting metallic perovskite lanthanum nickelate (LaNiO3) from the nanostructured pyramidal and whisker shaped tips as electron emitters. Nano particles of lanthanum nickelate (LNO) were prepared by sol-gel route. Structural and morphological studies have been carried out. Field emission of LNO exhibited high emission current density, J = 3.37 mA/cm(2) at a low threshold electric field, E-th = 16.91 V/mu m, obeying Fowler-Nordheim tunneling. The DC electrical resistivity exhibited upturn at 11.6K indicating localization of electron at low temperature. Magnetoresistance measurement at different temperatures confirmed strong localization in nanostructured LNO obeying Anderson localization effect at low temperature. Published by AIP Publishing