Transport properties of heavily AsF5 doped polyacetylene

We report measurements of the temperature dependence of the thermoelectric power and electrical conductivity for polyacetylene heavily doped (more than 10%) with arsenic pentafluoride. The thermopower is small, positive and linear with temperature. The conductivity is very large for a polymeric system, about 1000 (Ω cm)^-1 at room temperature, and as temperature is decreased drops in value by less than a factor of two, becoming essentially temperature independent below 4 K. The samples exhibited ohmic behavior at the current densities used and did not show any frequency dependence up to 1000 Hz. No evidence for superconductivity was found down to 30 mK. The results are interpreted as the first conclusive evidence for the existence of a metallic state at all temperatures in this material.     

Reliability of background current subtraction in anodic stripping voltammetry at mercury film electrodes

The effectiveness and accuracy of the correction for background current in subtractive anodic stripping voltammetry at rotating mercury film electrodes are discussed. The effects of different experimental parameters on the subtracted baseline are examined. Long deposition periods, at extreme potentials, result in large errors in the background correction. The incomplete background correction is attributed mainly to changes in the morphology of the working electrode. Different approaches for obtaining the subtractive stripping response are compared. Errors are reduced when subtractive differential pulse stripping is used at different convection rates, resulting in a detection limit of 2 × 10^-9 M cadmium with 1-min deposition. Cadmium, lead, and zinc ions at nano molar concentrations were used as test ions.     

Raman scattering from crystalline and amorphous (GaSb)1-xGex semiconducting films

The first reported Raman scattering experiments have been performed on single crystal and amorphous films of the metastable alloy (GaSb)_1-xGe_x with compositions across the pseudobinary phase diagram. In crystalline films, the optical phonons exhibit a “one-two” type mode behavior. Broadening and softening of the Raman peaks with increasing alloy concentrations are attributed to a relaxation of q-vector selection rules due to substitutional disorder on both the cation and anion sublattices. Additionally, disorder induced scattering from the zone-edge acoustic phonons was observed. In amorphous alloy films, the reduced Raman spectra were compared to the one-phonon densities of states of the end-member crystals. The resulting apparent lack of polarization dependence indicated that the amorphous films were of the random network type.