December 20, 2002

Questioned papers in Physical Review journals retracted

Ridge, NY -- American Physical Society (APS) journals are printing retractions of six papers as a result of the Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs inquiry into misconduct by Jan Hendrik Schön.

Two of the papers, published in Physical Review B, were implicated in the Lucent investigation chaired by Malcolm Beasley of Stanford University. They have been retracted today with the agreement of all authors.

A further four papers, published in Physical Review B and Physical Review Letters, but not studied by the Lucent investigation, will be retracted in the next week, with the agreement of all authors except Schön.

Two papers that included Schön as a co-author remain in the literature after their authors expressed that they do not wish to make retractions.

In view of the seriousness of the issue, APS felt it prudent to contact Schön and all of his living co-authors (one is deceased) about articles in APS journals although only two of the eight articles were explicitly discussed in the Lucent report. Information from these co-authors indicates scientific concerns for all the retracted papers.

All co-authors indicated that they felt the papers should be retracted. Schön declined to join in this statement except with regard to the two papers mentioned in the Lucent report. Given the preponderance of evidence from the Lucent report and the opinions of Schön's co-authors, the APS decided it is in the best interests of the community to report the fact that these articles are being retracted by most of the authors, while also reporting Schön's contrary view.

Retractions will appear in upcoming print issues of the journals and online versions will have notations to indicate the retractions. The online tables of contents and abstracts of the papers will include a message with links to the full text retractions.

The editors of the Physical Review journals have chosen to leave the retracted papers available online as part of the research record, just as they remain in archived print copies of the journal. However, online versions will always appear with clear statements of retraction and all papers affected will be accompanied by links to the retractions. These notations will appear so that researchers will be able to see them regardless of how they navigate to the versions of the papers online.

The retractions also link to the full text of the Beasley report, which Lucent has given the American Physical Society permission to mirror at a permanent web address associated with the journals.

The following two papers have been retracted with the agreement of all authors:

Electrical properties of single crystals of rigid rodlike conjugated molecules
J. H. Schön, Ch. Kloc, R. A. Laudise, and B. Batlogg
Phys. Rev. B 58, 12952-12957 (1998)
http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v58/p12952
Retraction: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v66/e249904

Hole transport in pentacene single crystals
J. H. Schön, Ch. Kloc, and B. Batlogg
Phys. Rev. B 63, 245201 (2001)
http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v63/e245201
Retraction: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v66/e249903

The following four papers have been retracted with the agreement of all authors except Schön:

Conjugation length dependence of the charge transport in oligothiophene single crystals
J. H. Schön, Ch. Kloc, D. Fichou, and B. Batlogg
Phys. Rev. B 64, 035209 (2001)
http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v64/e035209

Mobile iodine dopants in organic semiconductors
Jan Hendrik Schön, Christian Kloc, and Bertram Batlogg
Phys. Rev. B 61, 10803-10806
http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v61/p10803

Low-temperature transport in high-mobility polycrystalline pentacene field-effect transistors
J. H. Schön, Ch. Kloc, and B. Batlogg
Phys. Rev. B 63, 125304 (2001)
http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v63/e125304

Universal Crossover from Band to Hopping Conduction in Molecular Organic Semiconductors
Jan Hendrik Schön, Christian Kloc, and Bertram Batlogg
Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 3843-3846 (2001)
http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v86/p3843

The authors of the following two papers have indicated that they do not wish to retract these articles:

Coupling of gate-induced superconducting polythiophene layers through an insulating part
Jan Hendrik Schön
Phys. Rev. B 65, 052502 (2002)
http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v65/e052502

Electron-Phonon Coupling Spectrum in Photodoped Pentacene Crystals
Mark Lee, J. H. Schön, Ch. Kloc, and B. Batlogg
Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 862-865 (2001)
http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v86/p862