Route towards huge magnetoresistance in doped polymers

Abstract

Room-temperature magnetoresistance of the order of $10%$ has been observed in organic semiconductors. We predict that even larger magnetoresistance can be realized in suitably synthesized doped conjugated polymers. In such polymers, ionization of dopants creates free charges that recombine with a rate governed by a competition between an applied magnetic field and random hyperfine fields. This leads to a spin-blocking effect that depends on the magnetic field. We show that the combined effects of spin blocking and charge blocking, the fact that two free charges cannot occupy the same site, lead to a magnetoresistance of almost two orders of magnitude. This magnetoresistance occurs even at vanishing electric field and is therefore a quasiequilibrium effect. The influences of the dopant strength, energetic disorder, and interchain hopping are investigated. We find that the dopant strength and energetic disorder have only little influence on the magnetoresistance. Interchain hopping strongly decreases the magnetoresistance because it can lift spin-blocking and charge-blocking configurations that occur in strictly one-dimensional transport. We provide suggestions for realization of polymers that should show this magnetoresistance.