Temporally Ordered Collective Creep and Dynamic Transition in the Charge-Density-Wave ConductorNbSe3

Abstract
We have observed an unusual form of creep at low temperatures in the charge-density-wave (CDW) conductor NbSe3. This creep develops when CDW motion becomes limited by thermally activated phase advance past individual impurities, demonstrating the importance of local pinning and related short-length-scale dynamics. Unlike in vortex lattices, elastic collective dynamics on longer length scales results in temporally ordered motion and a finite threshold field. A first-order dynamic phase transition from creep to high-velocity sliding produces “switching” in the velocity-field characteristic.