Abstract
I WISH to draw attention to the potential of odd alternant hydrocarbons (OAHs) in the design of organic metals and superconductors which gives reason to suppose that they may prove equal or even superior to present systems. There is now strong evidence for the existence of the metallic state in certain organic charge transfer salts, and a suggestion of low temperature superconducting fluctuations in the case of tetrathiofulvalene–tetracyanoquinodimethane (TTF–TCNQ); present interest is now focused on the stabilisation of these states at greater (critical) temperatures1. In contrast to the molecular crystals usually formed by conjugated organic molecules (which are held together by van der Waals' forces and characterised by a relatively weak intermolecular interaction), these salts crystallise as segregated one-dimensional stacks of cation and/or anion radicals in which the charge transfer process and thus the electronic mobility within a stack is greatly enhanced by the abnormally high overlap of the π-electron wave functions of nearest neighbours in the stack and by the ability of the constituent molecules to stabilise an ionic fluctuation.
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HADDON, R. Design of organic metals and superconductors. Nature 256, 394–396 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/256394a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/256394a0
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