Determination of the Fermi Velocity by Angle-dependent Periodic Orbit Resonance Measurements in the Organic Conductor alpha-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4

TL;DR

This study uses angle-dependent microwave resonance measurements to directly determine the Fermi velocity in an organic conductor, revealing a strongly corrugated quasi-one-dimensional Fermi surface and insights into its charge-density-wave state.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of periodic orbit resonance measurements for direct Fermi velocity determination without detailed bandstructure assumptions.

Findings

Fermi velocity v_F=6.5x10^4 m/s determined

Q1D Fermi surface is strongly corrugated

Interlayer electrodynamics are addressed

Abstract

We report detailed angle-dependent studies of the microwave (f=50 to 90 GHz) interlayer magneto-electrodynamics of a single crystal sample of the organic charge-density-wave (CDW) conductor alpha-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4. Recently developed instrumentation enables both magnetic field (B) sweeps for a fixed sample orientation and, for the first time, angle sweeps at fixed f/B. We observe series' of resonant absorptions which we attribute to periodic orbit resonances (POR) - a phenomenon closely related to cyclotron resonance. The angle dependence of the POR indicate that they are associated with the low temperature quasi-one-dimensional (Q1D) Fermi surface (FS) of the title compound; indeed, all of the resonance peaks collapse beautifully onto a single set of f/B versus angle curves, generated using a semiclassical magneto-transport theory for a single Q1D FS. We show that Q1D POR measurements provide one of the most direct methods for determining the Fermi velocity, without any detailed assumptions concerning the bandstructure; our analysis yields an average value of v_F=6.5x10^4 m/s. Quantitative analysis of the POR harmonic content indicates that the Q1D FS is strongly corrugated. This is consistent with the assumption that the low-temperature FS derives from a reconstruction of the high temperature quasi-two-dimensional FS, caused by the CDW instability. Detailed analysis of the angle dependence of the POR yields parameters associated with the CDW superstructure which are consistent with published results. Finally, we address the issue as to whether or not the interlayer electrodynamics are coherent in the title compound.