Solitonics with polyacetylenes

In the past forty years, polyacetylene molecular wires have attracted a long-standing interest.These wires support almost-freely propagation topological domain-wall states, so-called solitons, which provide a paradigm for spin-charge separation. Recent experimental developments have shown that individual polyacetylene chains can be synthesized on metallic substrates. Motivated by this breakthrough, we propose a way for chemically supported “soliton-design” in these systems. We demonstrate how to control the soliton position and how to read-it out by electrical means. We also show how additional soliton-antisoliton pairs arise when applying moderate static electric fields. This provides a step toward functional electronic devices based on soliton manipulation, i.e. solitonics.