A study of the nonlinear dynamics of charge density waves (CDW) is proposed. A capacitive coupling technique will be developed which will allow the application of local electric fields to a sample on length scales as small as the longitudinal phase-phase correlation length. Measurements of the real-time response of the CDW to local and global perturbations will be quantitatively compared with recent theory of CDW dynamics which explicitly takes into account the effect of quasi particles on the CDW transport. Studies of effects due to pulse-duration, mode-locking, delayed critical switching, nucleation of dynamical solitons, ratcheting the CDW into a self-organized critical state, avalanches and critical dynamics below threshold will be investigated. The work will advance the understanding of the nonlinear dynamics of systems with many degrees of freedom and many metastable configurations.
