Tunnel transport in polypyrrole at low temperature

Abstract

The anomalous behaviour of conductivity below 4 K in polypyrrole can be attributed to the possibility of tunnel transport in disordered polaronic systems. The deviation from T^−⅓ and T^−¼, depending on disorder, can be due to the onset of tunnel transport between localised states, apart from the hopping contribution to the conductivity. In intermediately and lightly doped polypyrrole films, the tunnel contribution to conductivity increases with decreasing temperature in a narrow temperature range, which is a feature of the presence of polarons taking part in the conduction mechanisms of disordered systems with strong electron-phonon coupling. The transition from hopping to tunneling dominated process can be observed either by the increase in conductivity in some cases or by the saturation of conductivity, depending crucially on the extent of disorder in the sample. In both cases the transition temperature is seen to increase with the reduction in the number of localised states.