Electronic Transport Properties of Incipient Graphitic Domains Formation in PAN Derived Carbon Nanofibers

The carbon nanofibers used in this work were derived from a polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/N, N-dimethyl formamide (DMF) precursor solution using electrospinning and vacuum pyrolysis techniques. Their conductivity, σ, was measured at temperatures between 1.9 and 300 K and transverse magnetic field between -9 and 9 T. Zero magnetic field conductivity σ(0,T) was found to increase monotonically with the temperature with a convex σ(0,T) versus T curve. Conductivity increases with the external transverse magnetic field, revealing a negative magnetoresistance at temperatures between 1.9 and 10 K, with a maximum magnetoresistance of - 75 % at 1.9 K and 9 T. The magnetic field dependence of the conductivity and the temperature dependence of the zero-field conductivity are best described using the two-dimensional weak localization effect.