Long-Range and Local Instabilities in Sliding Charge Density Waves

The charge density wave (CDW) can be strained by applied voltage or by charge transfer at junctions, or by an electric field which can also put the CDW into sliding. Strains can give rise to local or long-range modulational instabilities. Their recent identification in K_0.3MoO₃ (Le Bolloc’h et al. in Phys. Rev. Lett. 100:096403, 2008) was provided by a new method of coherent micro diffraction, accessible at the modern synchrotron irradiation sources. We present the plausible scenario of the observed phenomena, related to formation of solitonic lattices, perform the numerical modeling, and compare the results with the experimental data.