Structural models for alkali-metal complexes of polyacetylene

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Abstract
Structural models for a stage-2 complex are proposed for polyacetylene doped with less than about 0.1 potassium or rubidium atoms per carbon. These structures utilize as a basic motif an alkali-metal column surrounded by four planar-zig-zag polyacetylene chains, a structure found at the highest dopant levels. In the new stage-2 structures, each polyacetylene chain neighbors only one alkali-metal column, so the phase contains four polymer chains per alkali-metal column. Basic structural aspects for stage-1 and stage-2 structures are now established for both potassium- and rubidium-doped polyacetylene. X-ray-diffraction and electrochemical data show that undoped and doped phases coexist at low dopant concentrations (<0.06 K atom per C). X-ray-diffraction data, down to a Bragg spacing of 1.3 Å, for polyacetylene heavily doped with potassium (0.125–0.167 K atom per C) is fully consistent with our previously proposed stage-1 tetragonal unit cell containing two polyacetylene chains per alkali-metal column. There is no evidence for our samples requiring a distortion to a monoclinic unit cell as reported by others for heavily doped samples. The nature of structural transformations and the relationship between structure and electronic properties are discussed for potassium-doped polyacetylene.