Experimentally Determining the Internal Friction of Conductive Fibers

Conductive polymer fibers have the potential to take electronics to the molecular scale by allowing current to pass along a single molecule. Unfortunately, their use has been limited by difficulty in determining their mechanical properties. It is the goal of this research to develop a technique for measuring the internal friction of conductive polymer fibers. Unfortunately, I was not able to use a conducting polymer for this research, but instead used gold wire. I forced the wire into harmonic resonance by exposing it to an oscillating magnetic field while passing current along the wire. Using a phototransistor and LED I was able to observe the decay of the fiber from resonance in air. Were this technique used in a vacuum, it would be possible to determine the internal decay of the sample.