Non-ohmic conductivity of TaS3 in the low-temperature semiconducting regime

Electrical conductivity of the quasi one-dimensional conductor TaS₃ was measured in the low-temperature semiconducting regime. Below 100K, the conductivity along c-axis (l-d axis) in the low field limit is characterized by the activated process with the activation energy of 250K, and the current-field (I-E) characteristic is nonlinear, $\text{dI}\text{dE}$ increasing with the field strength. These results can be explained by the excitation of phase solitons associated with pinned CDW condensates.