It stands out among them (and also among the sub-class of "purple" molybdenum bronzes) for its peculiar electrical properties, including a marked anisotropy that makes it a "quasi-1D" conductor, and a metal-to-insulator transition as it is cooled below 30 K. The compound was first obtained by Martha Greenblatt and others by a temperature gradient flux technique.
In a typical preparation, a stoichometric melt of Li2MoO4, MoO2 and MoO3 is maintained in a temperature gradient from 490 to 640 °C oven 15 cm in vacuum over several days.
It has a three-dimensional crystal structure, but a pseudo-one-dimensional (1D) metallic character, eventually becoming a superconductor at about 2 K.[4] Its properties are most spectacular below 5 meV.
[3] This anisotropy has been attributed to the crystal structure, specifically to the zig-zag chains of molybdenum and oxygen atoms [2] The resistivity along all three axes increases linearly with temperature from about 30 K to 300 K, as in a metal.
[3] This is anomalous since such a law is expected above the Debye temperature (= 400 K for this compound)[8] The resistivity ratios along the three axes are preserved in that range.
[1] Santos and others have observed that the thermal expansion coefficient is largest along the a axis, so cooling will bring the conducting chains closer together, leading to a dimensional cross-over.
[3] In 2023 it has been suggested that the strange behaviour could be by emergent symmetry (in contrast to symmetry breaking) from interference between the conduction electrons and dark excitons[10][11] Lithium molybdenum purple bronze becomes superconductor between 1 and 2 K.[1] Li0.9Mo6O17, due to spin–charge separation, can have a much higher thermal conductivity than predicted by the Wiedemann-Franz law.