The Characterization Of Organic Charge Transfer Superconductors By Microreflectance Spectroscopy

Abstract

Certain classes of organic charge-transfer salts demonstrate superconducting behavior at liquid helium temperatures. Single crystal x-ray diffraction and infrared microreflectance analysis have been performed on several conducting systems to associate the nature of the crystalline structure with the electrical conductivity. The infrared spectrum for a single crystal salt exhibits absorptions which correlate with superconducting behavior.Discussion Williams and coworkers have performed x-ray Crystallography experiments to demonstrate the presence of an anion cavity between radical cation stacks- of bis(ethylenedithio)- tetrathiafulvalene (ET). The sulfur…sulfur interstack distance in a beta or kappa phase salt assumes a value less than the Vanderwaals distance and exhibit a superconducting (two dimensional) metal behavior (verified by Fermi surface calculations) at 1-20K. The structures of alpha and beta phase ET2I3 suggest the potential for several potential intermolecular interaction modes. It may be observed that the beta phase permits both interstack as well as H … X anionic interactions, whereas these interactions are less likely to occur in the alpha phase.