FREQUENCY LOCKING AND NONLOCAL TRANSPORT IN CHARGE-DENSITY-WAVE CONDUCTORS

The boundary conditions imposed by current injection electrodes on ste ady-state sliding of a charge-density wave (CDW) cause the formation o f a macroscopic CDW strain field. When two segments of a crystal are i ndependently biased, the resulting strain field can couple CDW transpo rt in these segments. Using a one-dimensional classical deformable med ium model that includes phase slip, we calculate how the CDW current i n each segment varies with the two biases. The results are in excellen t qualitative agreement with experiments on nonlocal CDW behavior in N bSe3, and indicate that the boundary conditions imposed by phase slip and the resulting long-range elastic interactions profoundly affect me asured CDW transport properties in experiments utilizing multiple curr ent injection electrodes.