Properties of low-Dimensional metals at high pressure

Abstract

Low dimensional metals, in which the conduction electrons are confined to stacks or within layers, provide an important area of research into interactions in the electron gas and its coupling to the lattice. The metallic state is commonly unstable at low temperatures, and can be replaced by a wide variety of ground states, including the charge density wave (CDW) state, spin density wave (SDW) state, superconductivity etc. High pressure has always been an important experimental tool in this field, as many of the materials studied have high compressibilities, and it is often possible to switch from one ground state to another under pressure. We consider here the properties under pressure of a series of organo-metallic charge transfer salts in which the metallic behaviour is due to intermolecular delocalisation of the π electron systems of the ligand groups around the transition metal atom.