THE LOW-FIELD CONDUCTIVITY OF ZEOLITE-ENCAPSULATED MOLECULAR WIRES

The first measurements of an upper bound for the low-field conductivit y of a molecular wire are presented here. We were able to encapsulate polypyrrole with chain lengths more than 10 monomers within the channe ls of different zeolites. Although the chains are fully oxidized by in trazeolite Fe3+ ions, and should conduct (when included in a bulk poly mer), they do not exhibit, in the zeolite, significant ac conductivity up to 1 GHz. This suggests that other strategies than low field condu ctivity are needed to inject charges and transmit information through isolated molecular wires.