Ferroelectric Mott-Hubbard phase in organic conductors

TL;DR

This paper explores the interplay of ferroelectricity and charge disproportionation in organic conductors, proposing a new theoretical framework involving a combined Mott-Hubbard state to explain experimental phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of a combined Mott-Hubbard state and links ferroelectricity to hidden charge ordering in organic metals, advancing understanding of their phase transitions.

Findings

Identification of ferroelectric and anti-ferroelectric phase transitions in dielectric susceptibility.

Evidence of coexistence and independence of ferroelectric and anionic transitions.

Proposal of hidden charge ordering in (TMTSF)_2X explaining optical and pseudogap features.

Abstract

We present key issues of related phenomenons of the Ferroelectricity and the Charge Disproportionation in organic metals. In (TMTTF_2X the dielectric susceptibility demonstrates clear cases of the ferroelectric and anti-ferroelectric phase transitions. Both the susceptibility and the conductivity prove independence and occasional coexistence of "structurless" ferroelectric transitions and usual "anionic" ones. Their sequence gives access to physics of three types of solitons emerging upon cooling via several steps of symmetry breaking. The theory invokes a concept of the Combined Mott-Hubbard State which focuses upon weak processes of electronic Umklapp scattering coming from both the build-in nonequivalence of bonds and the spontaneous one of sites. We propose that the charge ordering in its form of the ferroelectricity exists hiddenly even in the Se subfamily (TMTSF)_2X, giving rise to the unexplained yet low frequency optical peak and the enhanced pseudogap.