Modulation effect of transverse currents on the switch and hysteresis characteristics in blue bronze Rb0.3MoO3

The modulation effect of transverse current on the switching with hysteresis characteristics of quasi-1D charge-density wave conductor rubidium blue bronze Rb0.3MoO3 single crystals was investigated for the first time. The behavior of the transverse current dependence of second threshold field ET2 (E-I characteristic curves) was obtained at 24 K under the current source driving. The ET2 gradually decreases with the increase of transverse current IT when transverse current IT exceeds a certain value IC. The E-I curves become smoother and the switching shows a gentle weakening by the increasing of IT. Correspondingly, the I-E properties (voltage source driving) with an obvious switching from a low conducting state to a high conducting state were measured under the modulation of transverse current. Gradually, the ET2 cannot be distinguished with transverse current increase. The areas of the hysteresis characteristics loop become gently smaller when transverse current increases. It is noted that the transverse currents only induce ET2 to decrease when they go up, yet however, hardly affect the back curves of the hysteresis loop. This could explain the effect of the transverse current as not a thermal effect, because the back curves of the hysteresis loop are not identical at different temperatures.