Theory of plastic flows of CDWs in application to the current conversion

Abstract

We suggest a theoretical picture for distributions of plastic deformations experienced by a sliding Charge Density Wave in the course of the conversion from the normal current at the contact to the collective one in the bulk. Several mechanisms of phase slips via creation and proliferation of dislocations are compared. The results are applied to space resolved X-ray, multi-contact and optical studies. Numerical simulations are combined with model independent relations.