No Arabic abstract
We investigate the charge density wave transport in a quasi-one-dimensional conductor, orthorhombic tantalum trisulfide ($o$-TaS$_3$), by applying a radio-frequency ac voltage. We find a new ac-dc interference spectrum in the differential conductance, which appear on both sides of the zero-bias peak. The frequency and amplitude dependences of the new spectrum do not correspond to those of any usual ac-dc interference spectrum (Shapiro steps). The results suggest that CDW phase dynamics has a hidden degree of freedom. We propose a model in which $2pi$ phase solitons behave as liquid. The origin of the new spectrum is that the solitons are depinned from impurity potentials assisted by an ac field when small dc field is applied. Our results provide a new insight as regards our understanding of an elementary process in CDW dynamics.
In contrast to a free electron system, a Tomonaga-Luttinger (TL) liquid in a one dimensional (1D) electron system hosts charge and spin excitations as independent entities. When an electron wave packet is injected into a TL liquid, it transforms into wave packets carrying either charge or spin that propagate at different group velocities and move away from each other. This process, known as spin-charge separation, is the hallmark of TL physics. While the existence of these TL eigenmodes has been identified in momentum- or frequency-resolved measurements, their waveforms, which are a direct manifestation of 1D electron dynamics, have been long awaited to be measured. In this study, we present a time domain measurement for the spin-charge-separation process in an asymmetric chiral TL liquid comprising quantum Hall (QH) edge channels. We measure the waveforms of both charge and spin excitations by combining a spin filter with a time-resolved charge detector. Spatial separation of charge- and spin-wave packets over a distance exceeding 200 um was confirmed. In addition, we found that the 1D electron dynamics can be controlled by tuning the electric environment. These experimental results provide fundamental information about non-equilibrium phenomena in actual 1D electron systems.
Density functional theory and density functional perturbation theory are used to investigate the electronic and vibrational properties of TiS$_2$. Within the local density approximation the material is a semi-metal both in the bulk and in the monolayer form. Most interestingly we observe a Kohn anomaly in the bulk phonon dispersion, which turns into a charge density wave instability when TiS$_2$ is thinned to less than four monolayers. Such charge density wave phase can be tuned by compressive strain, which appears to be the control parameter of the instability.
The two charge-density wave (CDW) transitions in NbSe$_3$ %at wave numbers at $bm{q_1}$ and $bm{q_2}$, occurring at the surface were investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) on emph{in situ} cleaved $(bm{b},bm{c})$ plane. The temperature dependence of first-order CDW satellite spots, obtained from the Fourier transform of the STM images, was measured between 5-140 K to extract the surface critical temperatures (T$_s$). The low T CDW transition occurs at T$_{2s}$=70-75 K, more than 15 K above the bulk T$_{2b}=59$K while at exactly the same wave number. %determined by x-ray diffraction experiments. Plausible mechanism for such an unusually high surface enhancement is a softening of transverse phonon modes involved in the CDW formation.% The large interval of the 2D regime allows to speculate on % %the special Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type of the surface transition expected for this incommensurate CDW. This scenario is checked by extracting the temperature dependence of the order % %parameter correlation functions. The regime of 2D fluctuations is analyzed according to a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type of surface transition, expected for this incommensurate 2D CDW, by extracting the temperature dependence of the order parameter correlation functions.
A mechanism is proposed to describe the occurrence of distance-dependent dissipation peaks in the dynamics of an atomic force microscope tip oscillating over a surface characterized by a charge density wave state. The dissipation has its origin in the hysteretic behavior of the tip oscillations occurring at positions compatible with a localized phase slip of the charge density wave. This model is supported through static and dynamic numerical simulations of the tip surface interaction and is in good qualitative agreement with recently performed experiments on a NbSe$_2$ sample.
The temperature dependence of the phonon spectrum in the superconducting transition metal dichalcogenide 2H-NbS$_2$ is measured by diffuse and inelastic x-ray scattering. A deep, wide and strongly temperature dependent softening, of the two lowest energy longitudinal phonons bands, appears along the $mathrm{Gamma M}$ symmetry line in reciprocal space. In sharp contrast to the iso-electronic compounds 2H-NbSe$_2$, the soft phonons energies are finite, even at very low temperature, and no charge density wave instability occurs, in disagreement with harmonic ab-initio calculations. We show that 2H-NbS$_2$ is at the verge of the charge density wave transition and its occurrence is only suppressed by the large anharmonic effects. Moreover, the anharmonicity and the electron phonon coupling both show a strong in-plane anisotropy.