Thermal Expansion And Transport Properties Of Low Dimensional Organic Conductors

Research activities in low dimensional conductors have shown a rapid growth since 1972 and have led to the discovery of new and remarkable phy sical properties unique to both molecular and inorganic conductors exhibi ting one-dimensional transport behaviour. This NATO Institute was a conti nuation of aseries of NATO Advanced Study Institutes of Worshops which took place at regular intervals till 1979. This is the first time, however, that charge density wave transport and electronic properties of low dimen sional organic conductors are treated on an equal footing. The program of the Institute was framed by tutorial lectures in the theories and experiments of low dimensional conductors. The bulk of the course covered two series of low-dimensional mate rials with their respective properties. 1) The I-D inorganic conductors exhibiting the phenomena of sliding charge density waves, narrow band noise, memory effects, etc ..• 2) Low-dimensional crystallized organic conductors giving rise to various possibilities of ground states, spin-Peierls, spin density wave, Peierls, superconductivity and magnetic-field induced spin density wave, etc ... Since it has been established from the beginning that this Institute was to be devoted essentially to the Physics of Low Dimensional Conductors, only one main course summarized the progress in chemistry and material preparation.

This book is a review of physical properties of organic conductors and superconductors. It is amply illustrated and contains numerous data concerning the latest elements and equipment constructed of low-dimensional organic conductors. It is hoped that the book will be stimulating for technologists and designers working on contemporary electronics.

The field of low-dimensional conductors has been very active for more than twenty years. It has grown continuously and both the inorganic and organic materials have remark able properties, such as charge and spin density waves and superconductivity. The discovery of superconductivity at high temperature in copper-based quasi two-dimensional conducting oxides nearly ten years ago has further enlarged the field and stimulated new research on inorganic conductors. It was obviously impossible to cover such a broad field in a ten day Institute and it seemed pertinent to concentrate on inorganic conductors, excluding the high Tc superconducting oxides. In this context, it was highly desirable to include both physics and chemistry in the same Institute in order to tighten or in some cases to establish links between physicists and chemists. This Advanced Study Institute is the continuation of a series of similar ones which have taken place every few years since 1974. 73 participants coming from 13 countries have taken part in this School at the beautiful site of the Centre de Physique des Houches in the Mont-Blanc mountain range. The scientific programme included more than forty lectures and seminars, two poster sessions and ten short talks. Several discussion sessions were organized for the evenings, one on New Materials, one on New Topics and one on the special problem of the Fermi and Luttinger liquids. The scientific activity was kept high from the beginning to the end of the Institute.

This work examines all aspects of organic conductors, detailing recent theoretical concepts and current laboratory methods of synthesis, measurement, control and analysis. It describes advances in molecular-scale engineering, including switching and memory systems, Schottky and electroluminescent diodes, field-effect transistors, and photovoltaic devices and solar cells.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Advances in Organic Conductors and Superconductors" that was published in Crystals