Anomalous temperature dependence of resistivity in quasi-one-dimensional conductors in a strong magnetic field

Abstract

We present a heuristic, semiphenomenological model of the anomalous temperature (T) dependence of resistivity Rxx recently observed experimentally in the quasi-one-dimensional (Q1D) organic conductors of the (TMTSF)2X family in moderately strong magnetic fields. We suggest that a Q1D conductor behaves like an insulator (dRxx/dT<0), when its effective dimensionality is one, and like a metal (dRxx/dT>0), when its effective dimensionality is greater than one. Applying a magnetic field reduces the effective dimensionality of the system and switches the temperature dependence of resistivity between the insulating and metallic laws depending on the magnitude and orientation of the magnetic field. We critically analyze whether various microscopic models suggested in literature can produce such a behavior and find that none of the models is fully satisfactory. In particular, we perform detailed analytical and numerical calculations within the scenario of magnetic-field-induced spin-density-wave precursor effect suggested by Gor'kov and find that the theoretical results do not agree with the experimental observations.

arXiv commentRevTeX, 17 pages, 7 figures. v.2: minor corrections; references are added and updated v.3: minor corrections as in the published version

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Conduction anisotropy and Hall effect in the organic conductor (TMTTF)2AsF6: evidence for Luttinger liquid and charge ordering
• Conduction Anisotropy, Hall Effect, and Magnetoresistance of (TMTSF)2ReO4 at High Temperatures
• Non Fermi Liquid Crossovers in a Quasi-One-Dimensional Conductor in a Tilted Magnetic Field
• Superconductivity and Antiferromagnetism in Quasi-one-dimensional Organic Conductors
• Electrical transport near quantum criticality in low dimensional organic superconductors
• Temperature dependence of the interlayer magnetoresistance of quasi-one-dimensional Fermi liquids at the magic angles