Fabricated structures for studying mesoscopic physics of charge density waves

Abstract
We present new methods for patterning and controlling the cross-section of the CDW conductor niobium triselenide crystals to sub-micron dimensions using photolithography and electron beam lithography. Experiments demonstrating these techniques are presented: accurate four-probe measurement of the c-axis resistivity as a function of temperature, and measurements of width and thickness-dependent size effects on the CDW condensate. In all samples, a region with near-perfect rectangular cross-section is left to provide a control, eliminating the need to compare different samples and reduces the role of sample-to-sample variations in the analyses.