The local-point interchain delocalization of the polaronic state of a one-dimensional polymer chain

Abstract

Interchain delocalization of the polaronic state in a quasi-one-dimensional polymer via local hopping at the points of the closest interchain separation has been investigated with a discrete two-chain model, which can be applicable also to the strong electron-phonon coupling and small radius polaron case. We have examined a variational solution of this model and found that the ground state of this model system changes continuously from the localized (one-chain polaron) to the delocalized state above the critical value, γ_c, of the relative strength of the local-point transverse transverse integral across the chains. The dependence of γ_c(μ) on the spatial extension of the polaron (μ⁻¹) has also been studied: for a small polaron (μ>1) γ_c≃0.5, while for a polaron of intermediate radius γ_c changes monotonically with the maximum around μ≃1, in contrast with the simple qualitative expectation.