Thermal generation and mobility of charge carriers in collective proton transport in hydrogen-bonded chains

Conference · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:5275623

Peyrard, M; Boesch, R; Kourakis, I ^[1]

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1. Dijon Univ., 21 (France). Faculte des Sciences

The transport of protons in hydrogen-bonded systems is a long standing problem which has not yet obtained a satisfactorily theoretical description. Although this problem was examined first for ice, it is relevant in many systems and in particular in biology for the transport along proteins or for proton conductance across membranes, an essential process in cell life. The broad relevance makes the study of proton conduction very appealing. Since the original work of Bernal and Fowler on ice, the idea that the transport occurs through chains of hydrogen bonds has been well accepted. Such proton wires'' were invoked by Nagle and Morowitz for proton transport across membranes proteins and more recently across lipid bilayers. In this report, we assume the existence of such an hydrogen-bonded chain and discuss its consequences on the dynamics of the charge carriers. We show that this assumption leads naturally to the idea of soliton transport and we put a special emphasis on the role of the coupling between the protons and heavy ions motions. The model is presented. We show how the coupling affects strongly the dynamics of the charge carriers and we discuss the role it plays in the thermal generation of carriers. The work presented has been performed in 1986 and 87 with St. Pnevmatikos and N. Flyzanis and was then completed in collaboration with D. Hochstrasser and H. Buettner. Therefore the results presented in this part are not new but we think that they are appropriate in the context of this multidisciplinary workshop because they provide a rather complete example of the soliton picture for proton conduction. This paper discusses the thermal generation of the charge carriers when the coupling between the protons and heavy ions dynamics is taken into account. The results presented in this part are very recent and will deserve further analysis but they already show that the coupling can assist for the formation of the charge carriers.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 5275623
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-91-2882; CONF-9105115-1; ON: DE92000306
• Resource Relation: Conference: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ARW workshop on computation of transport properties in the dilute gas region, Porto Carras (Greece), 28-31 May 1991
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC
ORGANIC
PHYSICAL AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
CHARGE CARRIERS
CARRIER MOBILITY
CHEMICAL BONDS
PROTON TRANSPORT
EQUATIONS OF MOTION
HAMILTONIANS
HYDROGEN
CHARGED-PARTICLE TRANSPORT
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
ELEMENTS
EQUATIONS
MATHEMATICAL OPERATORS
MOBILITY
NONMETALS
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
QUANTUM OPERATORS
RADIATION TRANSPORT
400201* - Chemical & Physicochemical Properties
640302 - Atomic
Molecular & Chemical Physics- Atomic & Molecular Properties & Theory