Electrical bistability and negative differential resistance in diodes based on silver nanoparticle-poly(N-vinylcarbazole) composites

An electrically bistable device has been fabricated using nanocomposite films consisting of silver nanoparticles and a semiconducting polymer by a simple spin-coating method. The current-voltage characteristics of the as-fabricated devices exhibit an obvious electrical bistability and negative differential resistance effect. The current ratio between the high-conducting state and low-conducting state can reach more than 103 at room temperature. The electrical bistability of the device is attributed to the electric-filed-induced charge transfer between the silver nanoparticles and the polymer, and the negative differential resistance behavior is related to the charge trapping in the silver nanoparticles. The results open up a simple approach to fabricate high quality electrically bistable devices by doping metal nanoparticles into polymer.

High negative ion production yield in 30 keV F2+ + adenine (C5H5N5) collisions

In collisions between slow F2+ ions (30 keV) and molecular targets, adenine, scattered particle production yields have been measured directly by simultaneous detection of neutrals, positive and negative ions. The relative cross-section for a negative ion formation channel was measured to be 1%. Despite a slight decrease compared to a larger target, the fullerene C-60, the measured negative ion formation cross section is still at least one order of magnitude larger than the yield in ion-atom interactions.