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Nano Research 2022, 15(4): 3788-3793 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4092-1
Research Article | Issue | Published: 06 January 2022

Tunable electrical properties of C60∙m-xylene and the formation of semiconducting ordered amorphous carbon clusters under pressure

Show Author's Information Zhongyan Wu1,  Guoying Gao2,  Jinbo Zhang3,  Alexander Soldatov2( ),  Jaeyong Kim1( ),  Lin Wang2( ),  Yongjun Tian2
Department of Physics, Institute for High Pressure Research, Hanyang University, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea
Center for High Pressure Science (CHiPS), State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China
College of Physical Science and Technology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225002, China
Keywords:
high pressure, electrical transport, fullerene solvate, dimerization, insulating-semiconducting transition
Topics:
Carbon composites
Cite this article:
Wu Z, Gao G, Zhang J, et al. Tunable electrical properties of C60∙m-xylene and the formation of semiconducting ordered amorphous carbon clusters under pressure. Nano Research, 2022, 15(4): 3788-3793. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4092-1
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Abstract Full text About this article

Ordered amorphous carbon clusters (OACC) transformed from m-xylene solvated C60 (C60·m-xylene) are known as the first crystalline material constructed from amorphous building blocks and have attracted a lot of attention. The formation mechanism and physical properties of this material are of great importance for the design of more materials with such structural characteristics. In this article, the transport and structural properties of C60·m-xylene are systematically investigated under pressure using impedance spectroscopy, four-probe resistance measurements, and Raman spectroscopy. It is found that C60·m-xylene is an insulator at ambient pressure. The resistance decreases sharply starting at the pressure around 8 GPa due to the pressure-induced dimerization of C60 verified by the Raman study. The presence of solvent hinders further polymerization of C60 under higher pressures. The temperature-dependence of resistance exhibits a semiconducting characteristic at > 8–26.9 GPa, and is well described by Mott's three-dimensional variable-range hopping model (3D-VRH), indicating an insulating-to-semiconducting transition accompanied with pressure-induced dimerization. The resistance and hopping energy are both found to decrease monotonically with pressure and reach the minimum near 24 GPa. Above the pressure, resistance and hopping energy values start to rise, suggesting a transition to another semiconducting state, which is attributed to the pressure-induced formation of OACC. The conductivity shows a large hysteresis during decompression from higher than 24 GPa, confirming a different transport behavior of the sample with retained fullerenes versus OACC. The findings of our study suggest that the transport property of fullerene is tunable by introducing solvates and further enhance our understanding of the OACC.


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About this article

Tunable electrical properties of C60∙m-xylene and the formation of semiconducting ordered amorphous carbon clusters under pressure

Show Author's information Zhongyan Wu1, Guoying Gao2, Jinbo Zhang3, Alexander Soldatov2( ), Jaeyong Kim1( ), Lin Wang2( ), Yongjun Tian2
Department of Physics, Institute for High Pressure Research, Hanyang University, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea
Center for High Pressure Science (CHiPS), State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China
College of Physical Science and Technology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225002, China

Abstract

Ordered amorphous carbon clusters (OACC) transformed from m-xylene solvated C60 (C60·m-xylene) are known as the first crystalline material constructed from amorphous building blocks and have attracted a lot of attention. The formation mechanism and physical properties of this material are of great importance for the design of more materials with such structural characteristics. In this article, the transport and structural properties of C60·m-xylene are systematically investigated under pressure using impedance spectroscopy, four-probe resistance measurements, and Raman spectroscopy. It is found that C60·m-xylene is an insulator at ambient pressure. The resistance decreases sharply starting at the pressure around 8 GPa due to the pressure-induced dimerization of C60 verified by the Raman study. The presence of solvent hinders further polymerization of C60 under higher pressures. The temperature-dependence of resistance exhibits a semiconducting characteristic at > 8–26.9 GPa, and is well described by Mott's three-dimensional variable-range hopping model (3D-VRH), indicating an insulating-to-semiconducting transition accompanied with pressure-induced dimerization. The resistance and hopping energy are both found to decrease monotonically with pressure and reach the minimum near 24 GPa. Above the pressure, resistance and hopping energy values start to rise, suggesting a transition to another semiconducting state, which is attributed to the pressure-induced formation of OACC. The conductivity shows a large hysteresis during decompression from higher than 24 GPa, confirming a different transport behavior of the sample with retained fullerenes versus OACC. The findings of our study suggest that the transport property of fullerene is tunable by introducing solvates and further enhance our understanding of the OACC.

Keywords: high pressure, electrical transport, fullerene solvate, dimerization, insulating-semiconducting transition

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Published: 06 January 2022
Issue date: April 2022

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© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 52090020 and 11874076), and National Research Foundation of Korea (Nos. 2016K1A4A3914691 and 2018R1D1A1B07049811).

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