Experimental Verification of Charge Soliton Excitations in the Ionic Mott-Peierls Ferroelectric, TTF-CA

TL;DR

This study experimentally verifies the existence of charge soliton excitations in the organic ferroelectric TTF-CA, revealing their role in charge transport and coexistence with spin solitons, advancing understanding of emergent excitations in correlated materials.

Contribution

The paper provides experimental evidence for charge solitons in TTF-CA and analyzes their transport properties, which was previously unverified.

Findings

Charge-transport gap is much smaller than expected from quasiparticles.

Charge and spin solitons have similar diffusion coefficients.

Results support thermal excitation of charge solitons.

Abstract

Strong coupling of charge, spin, and lattice in solids brings about emergent elementary excitations with their intertwining and, in one dimension, solitons are known as such. The charge-transferred organic ferroelectric, TTF-CA, has been argued to host charge solitons; however, the existence of the charge solitons remains unverified. Here, we demonstrate that the charge-transport gap in the ionic Mott-Peierls insulating phase of TTF-CA is an order of magnitude smaller than expected from quasiparticle excitations, however, being entirely consistent with the charge soliton excitations. We further suggest that charge and spin solitons move with similar diffusion coefficients in accordance with their coexistence. These results provide a basis for the thermal excitations of the emergent solitons.