Towards electrical domain-wall control in polyacetylene-based electronic nanodevices

TL;DR

This paper proposes a theoretical nano-device based on polyacetylene that uses voltage gates to control localized topological solitons with quantized charges, potentially useful for quantum dot applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel polymer-based nano-device model that demonstrates voltage-controlled topological charge localization in polyacetylene, highlighting its potential for quantum electronics.

Findings

Localized domain walls with quantized charges are demonstrated at voltage gates.

Multiple discrete charges can be accumulated by increasing voltage.

The device acts as a robust, organic quantum dot with large quantized charge.

Abstract

We theoretically propose a polymer-based nano-device consisting of a single trans-polyacetylene (tPA) molecule capacitively coupled to external voltage gates. We model the integrated device using a Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH)-like Hamiltonian, and we demonstrate the emergence of localized domain walls (DWs) with quantized charges (i.e., soliton excitations) localized at the gates. Interestingly, by increasing the applied voltage, multiple discrete charges can be accumulated, which may be useful for potential technological applications. Exploiting the topological character of the solitonic excitations of tPA, this device can be considered as an organic-based quantum dot with a very large and robust quantized charge.