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Register a new userQuasi-one-dimensional organic conductors: dimensional crossover and some puzzles
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We review some properties of quasi-one-dimensional organic conductors, such as the Bechgaard salts, with an emphasis on aspects related to the crossovers between a Mott insulating state to a metallic state, and crossovers between different metallic behaviors. We discuss why a theoretical description of these issues is a particularly challenging problem, and describe a recent non-perturbative approach designed to deal with systems of coupled chains. This method, dubbed chain-DMFT, is a generalization of dynamical mean field theory that treats both, one-dimensional and higher dimensional physics, in a unified manner. We present numerical results for a system of coupled Hubbard chains. Chain-DMFT indeed captures the metal-insulator transition and the dimensional crossover from a high temperature Luttinger liquid to a low temperature Fermi liquid phase, and allows to access the properties of these phases. Based on these results perspectives for a theoretical understanding of the physics of the Bechgaard salts are discussed.
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Low-dimensional organic conductors could establish themselves as model systems for the investigation of the physics in reduced dimensions. In the metallic state of a one-dimensional solid, Fermi-liquid theory breaks down and spin and charge degrees of freedom become separated. But the metallic phase is not stable in one dimension: as the temperature is reduced, the electronic charge and spin tend to arrange themselves in an ordered fashion due to strong correlations. The competition of the different interactions is responsible for which broken-symmetry ground state is eventually realized in a specific compound and which drives the system towards an insulating state. Here we review the various ordering phenomena and how they can be identified by optic and magnetic measurements. While the final results might look very similar in the case of a charge density wave and a charge-ordered metal, for instance, the physical cause is completely different. When density waves form, a gap opens in the density of states at the Fermi energy due to nesting of the one-dimension Fermi surface sheets. When a one-dimensional metal becomes a charge-ordered Mott insulator, on the other hand, the short-range Coulomb repulsion localizes the charge on the lattice sites and even causes certain charge patterns. We try to point out the similarities and conceptional differences of these phenomena and give an example for each of them. Particular emphasis will be put on collective phenomena which are inherently present as soon as ordering breaks the symmetry of the system.
Superconductivity of quasi-one-dimensional organic conductors with a quarter-filled band is investigated using the two-loop renormalization group approach to the extended Hubbard model for which both the single electron hopping t_{perp} and the repulsive interaction V_{perp} perpendicular to the chains are included. For a four-patches Fermi surface with deviations to perfect nesting, we calculate the response functions for the dominant fluctuations and possible superconducting states. By increasing V_{perp}, it is shown that a d-wave (singlet) to f-wave (triplet) superconducting state crossover occurs, and is followed by a vanishing spin gap. Furthermore, we study the influence of a magnetic field through the Zeeman coupling, from which a triplet superconducting state is found to emerge.
We report on dc and microwave experiments of the low-dimensional organic conductors (TMTSF)$_2$PF$_6$ and (TMTSF)$_2$ClO$_4$ along the $a$, $b^{prime}$, and $c^*$ directions. In the normal state of (TMTSF)$_2$PF$_6$ below T=70 K, the dc resistivity follows a power-law with $rho_a$ and $rho_{b^{prime}}$ proportional to $T^2$ while $rho_{c^*}propto T$. Above $T = 100$ K the exponents extracted from the data for the $a$ and $c^*$ axes are consiste1nt with what is to be expected for a system of coupled one-dimensional chains (Luttinger liquid) and a dimensional crossover at a temperature of about 100 K. The $b^prime$ axis shows anomalous exponents that could be attributed to a large crossover between these two regimes. The contactless microwave measurements of single crystals along the $b^{prime}$-axis reveal an anomaly between 25 and 55 K which is not understood yet. The organic superconductor (TMTSF)$_2$ClO$_4$ is more a two-dimensional metal with an anisotropy $rho_a/rho_{b^{prime}}$ of approximately 2 at all temperatures. Such a low anisotropy is unexpected in view of the transfer integrals. Slight indications to one-dimensionality are found in the temperature dependent transport only above 200 K. Even along the least conducting $c^*$ direction no region with semiconducting behavior is revealed up to room temperature.
We collect evidences on existence of microscopic solitons, and their determining role in electronic processes of quasi-1D conductors. The ferroelectric charge ordering gives access to several types of solitons in conductivity and permittivity, and to solitons bound pairs in optics - both in insulating and conducting cases of TMTTF and TMTSF subfamilies. The excursion to physics of conjugated polymers allows to suggest further experiments. Internal tunnelling in Charge Density Waves goes through the channel of amplitude solitons, which correspond to the long sought quasi-particle - the spinon. The same experiment gives an access to the reversible reconstruction of the junction via spontaneous creation of a lattice of 2Pi solitons - a grid of dislocations. The individual 2Pi solitons have been visually captured in recent STM experiments. Junctions of organic and oxide conductors are anticipated to show similar effects of reconstruction.
We suggest a theory of internal coherent tunneling in the pseudogap region, when the applied voltage U is below the free electron gap 2Delta_0. We address quasi 1D systems, where the gap is originated by spontaneous lattice distortions of the Incommensurate Charge Density Wave (ICDW) type. Results can be adjusted also to quasi-1D superconductors. The instanton approach allows to calculate the interchain tunneling current both in single electron (amplitude solitons, i.e. spinons) and bi-electron (phase slips) channels. Transition rates are governed by a dissipative dynamics originated by emission of gapless phase excitations in the course of the instanton process. We find that the single-electron tunneling is allowed below the nominal gap 2Delta_0 down to the true pair-breaking threshold at 2W_as<2Delta, where W_as=2Delta/pi is the amplitude soliton energy. Most importantly, the bi-electronic tunneling stretches down to U=0 (in the 1D regime). In both cases, the threshold behavior is given by power laws J (U-U_c)^beta, where the exponent beta v_F/u is large as the ratio of the Fermi velocity v_F and the phase one u. In the 2D or 3D ordered phases, at temperature T<T_c, the one-electron tunneling current does not vanish at the threshold U_c anymore, but saturates above it at U-U_c T_c<<Delta. Also the bi-particle channel acquires a finite threshold U_c=W_ph T_c<<Delta at the energy W_ph of the 2pi phase soliton.
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