U.S.-Austria Cooperative Research: High Frequency Dynamics of Charge Density Waves (Materials Research)

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This award will support a two-year cooperative research project in solid state physics between Professor George Gruner, Department of Physics, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Professor Karlheinz Seeger, Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Vienna, Austria, and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Solid State Physics, also in Vienna. The scientists and members of their research groups will study electrical conductivity properties of certain inorganic materials which show so-called charge density wave transport phenomena. Microwave harmonic mixing and microwave rectification experiments will be performed at various frequency values and over a broad range of temperatures and electric field values. One aim is to distinguish between phenomena which can be understood on the basis of classical descriptions and those for which a quantum approach is necessary. The model compounds to be studied in this research will be prepared by Professor Gruner and his research group at UCLA. The microwave measurements will be performed in Vienna, where Professor Seeger's group pioneered the technique of microwave harmonic mixing. These results, when combined with those from related measurements made at UCLA, should contribute significantly to a better understanding of the charge density wave transport phenomenon. The fundamental studies to be carried out in this cooperative effort are expected to add importantly to our understanding of electron interactions in solids. This in turn could lead eventually to the design of new electronic materials and devices. The Austrian microwave techniques to be employed in this research will also be applied by Professor Gruner and his group to other research problems under investigation in their laboratory.