Second harmonic wave generation from Joule heating in layered organic conductors

The amplitude of a second harmonic wave (SHW) generated from Joule heating as a heat source in organic conductor β-(BEDT-TTF)₂IBr₂ is analyzed as a function of the magnetic field strength and its orientation with respect to the plane of the layers. Angular oscillations of the SHW amplitude are correlated with the angular changes of in-plane conductivity that arise from the periodic dependence of charge carriers velocity on the field orientation. It was found that the nonlinear effect of wave generation leads to a shift between the position of the peaks of the wave amplitude and in-plane conductivity. This allows an important information on the parameter values of organic conductors as well as wave velocity to be obtained. Magnetic field dependence shows that the wave is not strongly attenuated with increasing field and might give insights on the interactions between the electromagnetic, temperature and acoustic oscillations. We found that these observations are completely different compared to those of linear acoustic wave generation. It has been shown that the necessary conditions for observing the nonlinear acoustic wave generation are fulfilled in a wide range of fields and angles that allow the acoustic properties of organic conductors to be studied in detail.