Chiral charge density waves in quasi one-dimensional organic conductors

Abstract

We discuss the interaction of a partially filled electronic conduction band in a segregated donor-acceptor stack system with librational modes of the solid. The orientational Peierls instability predicted by us earlier leads to the formation of chiral charge density waves, which interact and phase-lock below the metal-insulator transition Tc via the Coulomb interaction. The effect of the resulting order on the physical properties of the system and the implications for the understanding of the recent neutron scattering data for the occurrence of several transitions in TTF-TCNQ will be discussed.