NONLINEAR CONDUCTIVITY ANOMALIES OF THE QUASI-ONE-DIMENSIONAL COMPOUND M-TAS3 NEAR THE PEIERLS TRANSITION-TEMPERATURE

A new nonlinear conduction regime was discovered in the Peierls conduc tor m-TaS3. This regime occurs in a narrow (congruent to 5 K) temperat ure interval near the Peierls transition temperature T-P2 = 157.5 K an d it is characterized by the appearance of a) two substantially differ ent threshold voltages in the dependence of the differential conductan ce sigma(d) on the de voltage V-DC and b) periodic steps in the functi on sigma(d)(V-DC) in the presence of a strong rf field. Here the magni tude of a step (40 k Omega)(-1) is comparable to the conductance quant um. (C) 1995 American Institute of Physics.