We present a study of VO2 in the rutile and monoclinic (M1) phases by means of all-electron full-potential LMTO GW calculation. Full frequency dependence and the off-diagonal matrix elements of the self-energy are taken into account. As a result of dynamical correlation, a satellite structure is found above the $t_{2g}$ quasiparticle peak but not below, in both the rutile and monoclinic phases. For the monoclinic structure, the insulating state is not obtained within the usual 1-shot GW calculation. We perform a simplified "self-consistent" GW scheme by adding a uniform shift to the conduction band levels and recalculating the quasiparticle wavefunctions accordingly. An insulating solution with a gap of approximately 0.6 eV is obtained, in agreement with experiments.
The one-dimensional extended Peierls-Hubbard model is studied at several band fillings using the density matrix renormalization group method. Results show that the ground state evolves from a Mott-Peierls insulator with a correlation gap at half-filling to a soliton lattice with a small band gap away from half-filling. It is also confirmed that the ground state of the Peierls-Hubbard model undergoes a transition to a metallic state at finite doping. These results show that electronic correlations effects should be taken into account in theoretical studies of doped polyacetylene. They also show…
In an attempt to clarify the nature of the crossover from a Peierls band insulator to a Mott Hubbard insulator, we analyze ground-state and spectral properties of the one-dimensional half-filled Holstein Hubbard model using exact diagonalization techniques.
As a generic model describing quasi-one-dimensional Mott and Peierls insulators, we investigate the Holstein-Hubbard model for half-filled bands using numerical techniques. Combining Lanczos diagonalization with Chebyshev moment expansion we calculate exactly the photoemission and inverse photoemission spectra and use these to establish the phase diagram of the model. While polaronic features emerge only at strong electron-phonon couplings, pronounced phonon signatures, such as multi-quanta band states, can be found in the Mott insulating regime as well. In order to corroborate the Mott to Pei…
We investigate the Peierls transition in the one-dimensional Peierls-Hubbard model at half filling in the adiabatic approximation for the lattice. Depending on the value of the electron-lattice coupling constant g the equilibrium dimerization can be either enhanced or suppressed by the Hubbard interaction U. Applying second order perturbation theory we determine the critical value g_c = 0.689348 below which the Hubbard interaction enhances the dimerization.
In order to clarify the physics of the crossover from a Peierls band insulator to a correlated Mott-Hubbard insulator, we analyze ground-state and spectral properties of the one-dimensional half-filled Holstein-Hubbard model using quasi-exact numerical techniques. In the adiabatic limit the transition is connected to the band to Mott insulator transition of the ionic Hubbard model. Depending on the strengths of the electron-phonon coupling and the Hubbard interaction the transition is either first order or evolves continuously across an intermediate phase with finite spin, charge, and optical …
TiPO$_4$ is a Mott insulator and one of few inorganic compounds featuring a spin-Peierls phase at low temperature. Recent experimental studies have suggested the presence of spin-Peierls dimerization also at ambient temperature though at high pressure. Here, we present a combined experimental and theoretical study of the energetics of the high-pressure phase. We analyse dimerization properties and their coupling to spin degrees of freedom. Most importantly, we argue that TiPO$_4$ resents a direct analogue to the celebrated binary transition metal oxide VO$_2$. TiPO$_4$ allows to assess spin-di…
We consider the dimer Hubbard model within Dynamical Mean Field Theory to study the interplay and competition between Mott and Peierls physics. We describe the various metal-insulator transition lines of the phase diagram and the break down of the different solutions that occur along them. We focus on the specific issue of the debated Mott-Peierls insulator crossover and describe the systematic evolution of the electronic structure across the phase diagram. We found that at low intra-dimer hopping the emerging local magnetic moments can unbind above a characteristic singlet temperature $T^*$. …
The density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) is employed to calculate optical properties of the half-filled Hubbard model with nearest-neighbor interactions. In order to model the optical excitations of oligoenes, a Peierls dimerization is included whose strength for the single bonds may fluctuate. Systems with up to 100 electrons are investigated, their wave functions are analyzed, and relevant length-scales for the low-lying optical excitations are identified. The presented approach provides a concise picture for the size dependence of the optical absorption in oligoenes.
I construct the spectral function of the Luther-Emery model which describes one-dimensional fermions with one gapless and one gapped degree of freedom, i.e. superconductors and Peierls and Mott insulators, by using symmetries, relations to other models, and known limits. Depending on the relative magnitudes of the charge and spin velocities, and on whether a charge or a spin gap is present, I find spectral functions differing in the number of singularities and presence or absence of anomalous dimensions of fermion operators. I find, for a Peierls system, one singularity with anomalous dimensio…
The two-dimensional Peierls-Hubbard model is studied at half-filling within both Hartree-Fork and Kotliar-Ruckenstein slave-boson theory. The interplay between two types of long-range order, bond-order wave (BOW) and antiferromagnetism (AFM), is analysed for two representative dimerization patterns, corresponding both to the same wavevector $(π,π)$. For each pattern, the Peierls dimerization (and associated BOW) is weakened and finally suppressed with increasing Hubbard on-site interaction, and correspondingly AFM is gradually enhanced. In particular, a coexistence regime with both BOW and AFM…
We report quantum Monte Carlo (stochastic series expansion) results for the transition from a Mott insulator to a dimerized Peierls insulating state in a half-filled, 1D extended Hubbard model coupled to optical bond phonons. Using electron-electron (e-e) interaction parameters corresponding approximately to polyacetylene, we show that the Mott-Peierls transition occurs at a finite value of the electron-phonon (e-ph) coupling. We discuss several different criteria for detecting the transition and show that they give consistent results. We calculate the critical e-ph coupling as a function of t…
We reexamine the dimerization, the charge and the spin gaps of a half-filled Peierls-Hubbard chain by means of the incremental expansion technique. Our numerical findings are in significant quantitative conflict with recently obtained results by M. Sugiura and Y. Suzumura [J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. v. 71 (2002) 697] based on a bosonization and a renormalization group method, especially with respect to the charge gap. Their approach seems to be valid only in the weakly correlated case.
Competition between ordered phases, and their associated phase transitions, are significant in the study of strongly correlated systems. Here we examine one aspect, the nonequilibrium dynamics of a photoexcited Mott-Peierls system, using an effective Peierls-Hubbard model and exact diagonalization. Near a transition where spin and charge become strongly intertwined, we observe anti-phase dynamics and a coupling-strength-dependent suppression or enhancement in the static structure factors. The renormalized bosonic excitations coupled to a particular photoexcited electron can be extracted, which…
We consider the one-dimensional extended Hubbard model in the presence of an explicit dimerization $δ$. For a sufficiently strong nearest neighbour repulsion we establish the existence of a quantum phase transition between a mixed bond-order wave and charge-density wave phase from a pure bond-order wave phase. This phase transition is in the universality class of the two-dimensional Ising model.
Motivated by iodo platinum complexes assembled within a quadratic-prism lattice, [Pt(C$_2$H$_8$N$_2$)(C$_{10}$H$_8$N$_2$)I]$_4$(NO$_3$)$_8$, we investigate the ground-state properties of a Peierls-Hubbard four-legged tube. Making a group-theoretical analysis, we systematically reveal a variety of valence arrangements, including half-metallic charge-density-wave states. Quantum and thermal phase competition is numerically demonstrated with particular emphasis on doping-induced successive insulator-to-metal transitions with conductivity increasing stepwise.
The density matrix renormalization group method is used to investigate the Peierls transition for the extended Hubbard model coupled to quantized phonons. Following our earlier work on spin-Peierls systems, we use a phonon spectrum that interpolates between a gapped, dispersionless (Einstein) limit to a gapless, dispersive (Debye) limit to investigate the entire frequency range. A variety of theoretical probes are used to determine the quantum phase transition, including energy gap crossing, a finite size scaling analysis, and bipartite quantum entanglement. All these probes indicate that a tr…
Based on a symmetry argument we systematically reveal Hartree-Fock broken-symmetry solutions of the one-dimensional two-band extended Peierls-Hubbard model, which covers various materials of interest such as halogen-bridged metal complexes and mixed-stack charge-transfer salts. We find out all the regular-density-wave solutions with an ordering vector $q=0$ or $q=π$. Changing band filling as well as electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions, we numerically inquire further into the ground-state phase diagram and the physical property of each state. The possibility of novel density-wave…
Dynamical properties of photoexcited states are theoretically studied in a one-dimensional Mott insulator dimerized by the spin-Peierls instability. Numerical calculations combined with a perturbative analysis have revealed that the lowest photoexcited state without nearest-neighbor interaction corresponds to an interdimer charge transfer excitation that belongs to dispersive excitations. This excited state destabilizes the dimerized phase, leading to a photoinduced inverse spin-Peierls transition. We discuss the purely electronic origin of midgap states that are observed in a latest photoexci…
To explore the driving mechanisms of the metal-insulator transition (MIT) and the structural transition in VO2, we have investigated phonon dispersions of rutile VO2 (R-VO2) in the DFT and the DFT+U (U : Coulomb correlation) band calculations. We have found that the phonon softening instabilities occur in both cases, but the softened phonon mode only in the DFT+U describes properly both the MIT and the structural transition from R-VO2 to monoclinic VO2 (M1-VO2). This feature demonstrates that the Coulomb correlation effect plays an essential role of assisting the Peierls transition in R-VO2. W…
Motivated by recent chemical attempts at assembling halogen-bridged transition-metal complexes within a nanotube, we model and characterize a platinum-halide triangular prism in terms of a Peierls-Hubbard Hamiltonian. Based on a group-theoretical argument, we reveal a variety of valence arrangements, including heterogeneous or partially metallic charge-density-wave states. Quantum and thermal phase competitions are numerically demonstrated with particular emphasis on novel insulator-to-metal and insulator-to-insulator transitions under doping, the former of which is of the first order, while t…
We present a spectroscopic study that reveals that the metal-insulator transition of strained VO$_2$ thin films may be driven towards a purely electronic transition, which does not rely on the Peierls dimerization, by the application of mechanical strain. Comparison with a moderately strained system, which does involve the lattice, demonstrates the crossover from Peierls- to Mott-like transitions.
On the basis of ab initio density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we derive the underlying microscopic model Hamiltonian for TiOCl, a unique system that shows two consecutive phase transitions from a Mott insulator to a spin-Peierls insulator through a structurally incommensurate phase. We show with our model that the presence of magnetic frustration in TiOCl leads to a competition with the spin-Peierls distortion, which results in the novel incommensurate phase. In addition, our calculations indicate that the spin-Peierls state is triggered by adiabatic phonons, which is essential for u…
Density matrix renormalization group methods are used to investigate the quantum phase diagram of a one-dimensional half-filled ionic Hubbard model with bond-charge attraction, which can be mapped from the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger-type electron-phonon coupling at the antiadiabatic limit. A bond order wave (dimerized) phase which separates the band insulator from the Mott insulator always exists as long as electron-phonon coupling is present. This is qualitatively different from that at the adiabatic limit. Our results indicate that electron-electron interaction, ionic potential and quantum phonon …
For the one-dimensional, extended Peierls--Hubbard model we calculate analytically the ground-state energy and the single-particle gap to second order in the Coulomb interaction for a given lattice dimerization. The comparison with numerically exact data from the Density-Matrix Renormalization Group shows that the ground-state energy is quantitatively reliable for Coulomb parameters as large as the band width. The single-particle gap can almost triple from its bare Peierls value before substantial deviations appear. For the calculation of the dominant optical excitations, we follow two approac…
The electronic structure of VO$_2$ is studied in the frameworks of local density approximation (LDA) and LDA+$U$ to give a quantitative description of the metal-insulator (MI) transition in this system. It is found that, both structural distortion and the local Coulomb interaction, play important roles in the transition. An optical gap, comparable to the experimental value has been obtained in the monoclinic structure by using the LDA+$U$ method. Based on our results, we believe that both, the Peierls and the Mott-Hubbard mechanism, are essential for a description of the MI transition in this …
The dipole P(F) of systems with periodic boundary conditions (PBC) in a static electric field F is applied to one-dimensional Peierls-Hubbard models for organic charge-transfer (CT) salts. Exact results for P(F) are obtained for finite systems of N = 14 and 16 sites that are almost converged to infinite chains in deformable lattices subject to a Peierls transition. The electronic polarizability per site, α_{el} = (\partial P/\partial F)_0, of rigid stacks with alternating transfer integrals t(1 +/- δ) diverges at the neutral-ionic transition for δ= 0 but remains finite for δ> 0 in dimerized ch…
Vanadium dioxide undergoes a first order metal-insulator transition at 340 K. In this work, we develop and carry out state of the art linear scaling DFT calculations refined with non-local dynamical mean-field theory. We identify a complex mechanism, a Peierls-assisted orbital selection Mott instability, which is responsible for the insulating M$_1$ phase, and furthermore survives a moderate degree of disorder.
Using the Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) technique within frozen-phonon, we studied the effects of the half-breathing O$(π,0)$ phonon mode on the ground-state properties of the three-band Peierls-Hubbard model. Our simulations are performed for both ionic and covalent electron-phonon couplings. The effects of lattice displacements on the ground-state energies and charge fluctuations are similar in magnitude for both hole- and electron-doped cases. However, the effects of lattice displacements on the magnetic properties are rather different. In the hole-doped case, the normalized next-nearest-neighb…
The electronic properties of the quarter-filled extended Peierls-Holstein-Hubbard model that includes lattice distortions and molecular deformations are investigated theoretically using the bosonization approach. We predict the existence of a wide variety of charge-elastic phases depending of the values of the Peierls and Holstein couplings. We include the effect of the Peierls deformation in the nearest-neighbor repulsion V, that may be present in real materials where Coulomb interactions depend strongly on the distance, and we show that the phase diagram changes substantially for large V whe…
We investigate the momentum distribution function near the Mott-Hubbard transition in the one-dimensional t1-t2 Hubbard model (the zig-zag Hubbard chain), with the density-matrix renormalization-group technique. We show that for strong interactions the Mott-Hubbard transition occurs between the metallic-phase and an insulating dimerized phase with incommensurate spin excitations, suggesting a decoupling of magnetic and charge excitations not present in weak coupling. We illustrate the signatures for the Mott-Hubbard transition and the commensurate-incommensurate transition in the insulating sp…
Vanadium dioxide is one of the most studied strongly correlated materials. Nonetheless, the intertwining between electronic correlation and lattice effects has precluded a comprehensive description of the rutile metal to monoclinic insulator transition, in turn triggering a longstanding "the chicken or the egg" debate about which comes first, the Mott localisation or the Peierls distortion. Here, we suggest that this problem is in fact ill-posed: the electronic correlations and the lattice vibrations conspire to stabilise the monoclinic insulator, and so they must be both considered not to mis…
In order to explore the driving mechanism of the concomitant metal-insulator and structural transitions in quasi-one-dimensional hollandite K$_{2}$Cr$_{8}$O$_{16}$, electronic structures and phonon properties are investigated by employing the {\it ab initio} density functional theory (DFT) calculations. We have found that the imaginary phonon frequency reflecting the structural instability appears only in the DFT+$U$ ($U$: Coulomb correlation) calculation, which indicates that the Coulomb correlation plays an essential role in the structural transition. The lattice displacements of the softene…
Dynamics of charge density and lattice displacements after the neutral phase is photoexcited is studied by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for a one-dimensional extended Peierls-Hubbard model with alternating potentials. In contrast to the ionic-to-neutral transition studied previously, the neutral-to-ionic transition proceeds in an uncooperative manner as far as the one-dimensional system is concerned. The final ionicity is a linear function of the increment of the total energy. After the electric field is turned off, the electronic state does not significantly change, roughly…
We propose an order parameter for the one dimensional Mott-Hubbard transition and provide numerical evidence and general theoretical arguments for the correctness of our proposal. In addition, we discuss some of the implications of this picture of the one dimensional Mott-Hubbard transition and speculate about possible higher dimensional analogs.
We investigate the nature of the interaction-driven Mott-Hubbard transition of the half-filled $t_1{-}t_2$ Hubbard model in one dimension, using a full-fledged variational Monte Carlo approach including a distance-dependent Jastrow factor and backflow correlations. We present data for the evolution of the magnetic properties across the Mott-Hubbard transition and on the commensurate to incommensurate transition in the insulating state. Analyzing renormalized excitation spectra, we find that the Fermi surface renormalizes to perfect nesting right at the Mott-Hubbard transition in the insulating…
We use the continuous-time interaction expansion (CT-INT) quantum Monte Carlo method to calculate the phonon spectral function of the one-dimensional Holstein-Hubbard model at half-filling. Our results are consistent with a soft-mode Peierls transition in the adiabatic regime, and the existence of a central peak related to long-range order in the Peierls phase. We explain a previously observed feature at small momenta in terms of a hybridization of charge and phonon excitations. Tuning the system from a Peierls to a metallic phase with a nonzero Hubbard interaction suppresses the central peak,…
We investigate the microscopic dynamics at the initial stage of photoinduced phase transitions in tetrathiafulvalene-$p$-chloranil by exact diagonalization. We first show that the one-dimensional extended Peierls-Hubbard model exhibits a neutral phase with small ionicity and negligible dimerization and an ionic phase with moderate ionicity and dimerization. Aside from these phases, we find a doubly ionized phase with strong dimerization that we call the "dipole" phase. These ground-state phases are characterized by various order parameters and the Zak phase, which is relevant to electronic pol…
Through ${in~situ}$ photoemission spectroscopy, we investigated the change in the electronic and crystal structures of dimensionality-controlled VO$_2$ films coherently grown on TiO$_2$(001) substrates. In the nanostructured films, the balance between the instabilities of a bandlike Peierls transition and a Mott transition is controlled as a function of thickness. The characteristic spectral change associated with temperature-driven metal-insulator transition in VO$_2$ thick films holds down to 1.5 nm (roughly corresponding to five V atoms along the [001] direction), whereas VO$_2$ films of le…
I investigate band and Mott insulating states in a two-band Hubbard model, with the aim of understanding the differences between the idealised one-orbital model and the more realistic multi-band case. Using a projection ansatz I show that additional orbitals suppress the metal-insulator transition, leading to a critical coupling of approximately eight times the bare band-width. I also demonstrate the effects of orbital ordering, which hinder Mott-Hubbard states and open a band gap. Since multi-band correlations are common in real materials, this work suggests that the existence of very strongl…
We investigate the Mott transitions in the multi-orbital Hubbard model at half-filling by means of the self-energy functional approach. The phase diagrams are obtained at finite temperatures for the Hubbard model with up to four-fold degenerate bands. We discuss how the first-order Mott transition points $U_{c1}$ and $U_{c2}$ as well as the critical temperature $T_c$ depend on the orbital degeneracy. It is elucidated that enhanced orbital fluctuations play a key role to control the Mott transitions in the multi-orbital Hubbard model.
We study the low energy behavior of the one dimensional Hubbard model across the Mott metal-insulator phase transition in an external magnetic field. In particular we calculate elements of the dressed charge matrix at the critical point of the Mott transition for arbitrary Hubbard repulsion and magnetization numerically and, in certain limiting cases, analytically. These results are combined with a non-perturbative effective field theory approach to reveal how the breaking of time reversal symmetry influences the Mott transition.
We calculate the one-particle density of states for the Mott-Hubbard insulating phase of the Hubbard model on a Bethe lattice in the limit of infinite coordination number. We employ the Kato-Takahashi perturbation theory around the strong-coupling limit to derive the Green function. We show that the Green function for the lower Hubbard band can be expressed in terms of polynomials in the bare hole-hopping operator. We check our technique against the exact solution of the Falicov-Kimball model and give explicit results up to and including second order in the inverse Hubbard interaction. Our res…
We present a calculation of the recombination rate of the excited holon-doublon pairs based on the two-dimensional model relevant for undoped cuprates which shows that fast processes, observed in pump-probe experiments on Mott-Hubbard insulators in picosecond range, can be explained even quantitatively with the multi-magnon emission. The precondition is the existence of the Mott-Hubbard bound exciton of the s-type. We find that its decay is exponentially dependent on the Mott-Hubbard gap and on the magnon energy, with a small prefactor which can be traced back to strong correlations and conseq…
We present experimental evidences for a ferro-electric transition in the family of quasi one- dimensional conductors (TMTTF)2X. We interpret this new transition in the frame of the combined Mott-Hubbard state taking into account the double action of the spontaneous charge disproportionation on the TMTTF molecular stacks and of the X anionic potentials.
We investigate the Hubbard model on the anisotropic triangular lattice by means of the cellular dynamical mean field theory. The phase diagram determined in the Hubbard interaction versus temperature plane shows novel reentrant behavior in the Mott transition due to the competition between Fermi-liquid formation and magnetic correlations under geometrical frustration. We demonstrate that the reentrant behavior is characteristic of the Mott transition with intermediate geometrical frustration and indeed consistent with recent experimental results of organic materials.
A recent paper by Bluemer et al. [cond-mat/0609758] again criticizes earlier QMC/DMFT results by Liebsch [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 70}, 165103 (2004)]. This criticism is shown to be unfounded.
We calculate the zero-temperature gap and quasiparticle weight of the half-filled Hubbard model with a random dispersion relation. After extrapolation to the thermodynamic limit, we obtain reliable bounds on these quantities for the Hubbard model in infinite dimensions. Our data indicate that the Mott-Hubbard transition is continuous, i.e., that the quasiparticle weight becomes zero at the same critical interaction strength at which the gap opens.
We study antiferromagnetism and single-particle properties in the two-dimensional half-filled Hubbard model at low temperature. Collective spin fluctuations are governed by a non-linear sigma model that we derive from the Hubbard model for any value of the Coulomb repulsion. As the Coulomb repulsion increases, the ground state progressively evolves from a Slater to a Mott-Heisenberg antiferromagnet. At finite temperature, we find a metal-insulator transition between a pseudogap phase at weak coupling and a Mott-Hubbard insulator at strong coupling.
Mott transitions are studied in the two-dimensional Hubbard model by a non-perturbative theory of correlator projection that systematically includes spatial correlations into the dynamical mean-field approximation. Introducing a nonzero second-neighbor transfer, a first-order Mott transition appears at finite temperatures and ends at a critical point or curve.
We investigate the Mott transition in the Kagomé lattice Hubbard model using a cluster extension of dynamical mean field theory. The calculation of the double occupancy, the density of states, the static and dynamical spin correlation functions demonstrates that the system undergoes the first-order Mott transition at the Hubbard interaction $U/W \sim 1.4$ ($W$:bandwidth). In the metallic phase close to the Mott transition, we find the strong renormalization of three distinct bands, giving rise to the formation of heavy quasiparticles with strong frustration. It is elucidated that the quasipart…
In order to study consequences of the differences between the ionic-to-neutral and neutral-to-ionic transitions in the one-dimensional extended Peierls-Hubbard model with alternating potentials for the TTF-CA complex, we introduce a double pulse of oscillating electric field in the time-dependent Schrödinger equation and vary the interval between the two pulses as well as their strengths. When the dimerized ionic phase is photoexcited, the interference effect is clearly observed owing to the coherence of charge density and lattice displacements. Namely, the two pulses constructively interfere …
We have studied the impact of non-local electronic correlations at all length scales on the Mott-Hubbard metal-insulator transition in the unfrustrated two-dimensional Hubbard model. Combining dynamical vertex approximation, lattice quantum Monte-Carlo and variational cluster approximation, we demonstrate that scattering at long-range fluctuations, i.e., Slater-like paramagnons, opens a spectral gap at weak-to-intermediate coupling -- irrespectively of the preformation of localized or short-ranged magnetic moments. This is the reason, why the two-dimensional Hubbard model is insulating at low …
We investigate the Mott transitions in two-band Hubbard models with different bandwidths. Applying dynamical mean field theory, we discuss the stability of itinerant quasi-particle states in each band. We demonstrate that separate Mott transitions occur at different Coulomb interaction strengths in general, which merge to a single transition only under special conditions. This kind of behavior may be relevant for the physics of the single-layer ruthenates, Ca$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$RuO$_4$.
Using an \textit{ab initio} approach based on the GW approximation which includes strong local \textbf{k}-space correlations, the Metal-Insulator Transition of M$_2$ vanadium dioxide is broken down into its component parts and investigated. Similarly to the M$_{1}$ structure, the Peierls pairing of the M$_{2}$ structure results in bonding-antibonding splitting which stabilizes states in which the majority of the charge density resides on the Peierls chain. This is insufficient to drop all of the bonding states into the lower Hubbard band however. An antiferroelectric distortion on the neighbor…
Photoinduced dynamics of charge density and lattice displacements is calculated by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for a one-dimensional extended Peierls-Hubbard model with alternating potentials for the mixed-stack organic charge-transfer complex, TTF-CA. A pulse of oscillating electric field is incorporated into the Peierls phase of the transfer integral. The frequency, the amplitude, and the duration of the pulse are varied to study the nonlinear and cooperative character of the photoinduced transition. When the dimerized ionic phase is photoexcited, the threshold behavior i…