Switching, hysteresis and time delay in charge-density-wave conduction

Abstract A simple model based on the dynamics of coupled charge density wave domains is proposed to account for the sudden onset of nonlinear conduction, hysteresis in the current voltage characteristics and time delay phenomena, often observed in several model compounds. We suggest that while the overdamped phase dynamics does not lead to hysteretic behavior in the single or infinite degree of freedom limit, finite degrees of freedom restore this phenomenon.