Electrical properties of isolated poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) nanowires prepared by template synthesis

Electrical conductivity, current-voltage (I-V) characteristics, and low-temperature magnetoresistance of template-synthesized poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) nanowires are reported. The room-temperature conductivity of the semiconducting nanowire with a diameter of 82 nm is about 80 S/cm. It is found that with lowering temperature, the I-V curves show a transition from linear to nonlinear around 50 K and a clear Coulomb-gap-like structure appears on the differential conductance (dl/dV) curves possibly due to enhanced electron-electron interaction. The resistance below 70 K is dependent on the applied bias voltage used in the resistance measurements due to the nonlinear I-V characteristics. The magnetoresistance below 10 K is positive and increases with lowering temperature due to the wavefunction shrinkage effect on hopping conduction. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.