Spin-Flip Process of Polarons in Conjugated Polymers with Magnetic Impurities

Being driven by an external electric field, a polaron carrying both spin 1/2 and charge ±e moves at a constant speed in a polymer chain. When the polaron passes through a specific site, which couples to a magnetic impurity via spin-exchange interactions, its spin undergoes a spin-flip process if it is antiparallel to the impurity spin. Our numerical simulation shows that (a) a swap-like operation is performed between the polaron and impurity during the scattering process (b) polarons might be good candidates to be information carriers in the molecular scale.