Plastic sliding, strained states and current conversion in Density Waves

We outline a theory of coexisting elastic and plastic deformations in sliding Charge Density Waves. They occur in the course of the conversion from the normal current at the contact to the collective one in the bulk. Several mechanisms of phase slips via creation and proliferation of dislocations are compared. We present a modeling which helps to interpret space-resolved studies in recent [1] and earlier [2] X-ray experiments, in multi-contact [3] and optical [4] studies.