Transient electrical response of K 0.30MoO 3: Effects of isoelectronic dopants

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the variation of threshold fields and the transient response of tungsten- and rubidium- substituted K 0.30MoO 3. We find that the dc threshold electric field for the onset of nonlinear behavior scales linearly with tungsten concentration, but varies as the square of the rubidium concentration, indicating strong and weak pinning effects, respectively. In tungsten- substituted samples, the threshold field becomes a strong function of frequency in the range 0.01– 1000 Hz. Above a critical frequency which depends on the doping level, the threshold field is proportional to -log (frequency). We interpret these results as a further example of the spin glass- like response of the CDW. Nonlinear conductivity is observed only after the voltage has exceeded the threshold for a finite time interval.