Observing separate spin and charge Fermi seas in a strongly correlated one-dimensional conductor.

An electron is usually considered to have only one form of kinetic energy, but could it have more, for its spin and charge, by exciting other electrons? In one dimension (1D), the physics of interacting electrons is captured well at low energies by the Tomonaga-Luttinger model, yet little has been observed experimentally beyond this linear regime. Here, we report on measurements of many-body modes in 1D gated wires using tunneling spectroscopy. We observe two parabolic dispersions, indicative of separate Fermi seas at high energies, associated with spin and charge excitations, together with the emergence of two additional 1D "replica" modes that strengthen with decreasing wire length. The interaction strength is varied by changing the amount of 1D intersubband screening by more than 45%. Our findings not only demonstrate the existence of spin-charge separation in the whole energy band outside the low-energy limit of the Tomonaga-Luttinger model but also set a constraint on the validity of the newer nonlinear Tomonaga-Luttinger theory.

Organic electrodes based on grafted oligothiophene units in ultrathin, large-area molecular junctions.

Molecular junctions were fabricated with the combined use of electrochemistry and conventional CMOS tools. They consist of a 5-10 nm thick layer of oligo(1-(2-bisthienyl)benzene) between two gold electrodes. The layer was grafted onto the bottom electrode using diazonium electroreduction, which yields a stable and robust gold-oligomer interface. The top contact was obtained by direct electron-beam evaporation on the molecular layers through masks defined by electron-beam lithography. Transport mechanisms across such easily p-dopable layers were investigated by analysis of current density-voltage (J-V) curves. Application of a tunneling model led to a transport parameter (thickness of ~2.4 nm) that was not consistent with the molecular thickness measured using AFM (~7 nm). Furthermore, for these layers with thicknesses of 5-10 nm, asymmetric J-V curves were observed, with current flowing more easily when the grafted electrode was positively polarized. In addition, J-V experiments at two temperatures (4 and 300 K) showed that thermal activation occurs for such polarization but is not observed when the bias is reversed. These results indicate that simple tunneling cannot describe the charge transport in these junctions. Finally, analysis of the experimental results in term of "organic electrode" and redox chemistry in the material is discussed.