OSCILLATIONS, INTERFERENCE EFFECTS, AND SWITCHING IN CHARGE DENSITY WAVE SYSTEMS(EXPERIMENTS ON MX_3 COMPOUNDS, International Symposium on NONLINEAR TRANSPORT AND RELATED PHENOMENA IN INORGANIC QUASI ONE DIMENSIONAL CONDUCTORS)

Abstract

Many low dimensional metals are subject to periodic lattice distortions at low temperatures. In several instances, the resulting charge density wave (CDW) is mobile and contributes to the electrical dc and ac conductivity. Often the onset of dc conduction is associated with a sharp hysteretic switch from the non-conducting (pinned) to the conducting (sliding) CDW state. Associated with the conducting state are coherent and incoherent current oscillations'. The coherent oscillations may interact with externally applied a'c signals, leading to strong interference effects. In this presentation the properties of the oscillations, interference effects, and switching are discussed for the CDW systems NbSe3 and orthorhorabic TaS_3. Analysis of the experiments is. based on models of classical motion or quantum tunneling of the CDW condensate.