100 research outputs found
Heterogeneous dynamics of the three dimensional Coulomb glass out of equilibrium
The non-equilibrium relaxational properties of a three dimensional Coulomb
glass model are investigated by kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. Our results
suggest a transition from stationary to non-stationary dynamics at the
equilibrium glass transition temperature of the system. Below the transition
the dynamic correlation functions loose time translation invariance and
electron diffusion is anomalous. Two groups of carriers can be identified at
each time scale, electrons whose motion is diffusive within a selected time
window and electrons that during the same time interval remain confined in
small regions in space. During the relaxation that follows a temperature quench
an exchange of electrons between these two groups takes place and the
non-equilibrium excess of diffusive electrons initially present decreases
logarithmically with time as the system relaxes. This bimodal dynamical
heterogeneity persists at higher temperatures when time translation invariance
is restored and electron diffusion is normal. The occupancy of the two
dynamical modes is then stationary and its temperature dependence reflects a
crossover between a low-temperature regime with a high concentration of
electrons forming fluctuating dipoles and a high-temperature regime in which
the concentration of diffusive electrons is high.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure
On the structure of the energy distribution function in the hopping regime
The impact of the dispersion of the transport coefficients on the structure
of the energy distribution function for charge carriers far from equilibrium
has been investigated in effective-medium approximation for model densities of
states. The investigations show that two regimes can be observed in energy
relaxation processes. Below a characteristic temperature the structure of the
energy distribution function is determined by the dispersion of the transport
coefficients. Thermal energy diffusion is irrelevant in this regime. Above the
characteristic temperature the structure of the energy distribution function is
determined by energy diffusion. The characteristic temperature depends on the
degree of disorder and increases with increasing disorder. Explicit expressions
for the energy distribution function in both regimes are derived for a constant
and an exponential density of states.Comment: 16 page
Manifestation of ageing in the low temperature conductance of disordered insulators
We are interested in the out of equilibrium phenomena observed in the
electrical conductance of disordered insulators at low temperature, which may
be signatures of the electron coulomb glass state. The present work is devoted
to the occurrence of ageing, a benchmark phenomenon for the glassy state. It is
the fact that the dynamical properties of a glass depend on its age, i.e. on
the time elapsed since it was quench-cooled. We first critically analyse
previous studies on disordered insulators and question their interpretation in
terms of ageing. We then present new measurements on insulating granular
aluminium thin films which demonstrate that the dynamics is indeed age
dependent. We also show that the results of different relaxation protocols are
related by a superposition principle. The implications of our findings for the
mechanism of the conductance slow relaxations are then discussed
History-dependent relaxation and the energy scale of correlation in the Electron-Glass
We present an experimental study of the energy-relaxation in
Anderson-insulating indium-oxide films excited far from equilibrium. In
particular, we focus on the effects of history on the relaxation of the excess
conductance dG. The natural relaxation law of dG is logarithmic, namely
dG=-log(t). This may be observed over more than five decades following, for
example, cool-quenching the sample from high temperatures. On the other hand,
when the system is excited from a state S_{o} in which it has not fully reached
equilibrium to a state S_{n}, the ensuing relaxation law is logarithmic only
over time t shorter than the time t_{w} it spent in S_{o}. For times t>t_{w}
dG(t) show systematic deviation from the logarithmic dependence. It was
previously shown that when the energy imparted to the system in the excitation
process is small, this leads to dG=P(t/t_{w}) (simple-aging). Here we test the
conjecture that `simple-aging' is related to a symmetry in the relaxation
dynamics in S_{o} and S_{n}. This is done by using a new experimental procedure
that is more sensitive to deviations in the relaxation dynamics. It is shown
that simple-aging may still be obeyed (albeit with a modified P(t/t_{w})) even
when the symmetry of relaxation in S_{o} and S_{n} is perturbed by a certain
degree. The implications of these findings to the question of aging, and the
energy scale associated with correlations are discussed
Monte-Carlo Simulations of the Dynamical Behavior of the Coulomb Glass
We study the dynamical behavior of disordered many-particle systems with
long-range Coulomb interactions by means of damage-spreading simulations. In
this type of Monte-Carlo simulations one investigates the time evolution of the
damage, i.e. the difference of the occupation numbers of two systems, subjected
to the same thermal noise. We analyze the dependence of the damage on
temperature and disorder strength. For zero disorder the spreading transition
coincides with the equilibrium phase transition, whereas for finite disorder,
we find evidence for a dynamical phase transition well below the transition
temperature of the pure system.Comment: 10 pages RevTeX, 8 Postscript figure
Electronic transport in films of colloidal CdSe nanocrystals
We present results for electronic transport measurements on large
three-dimensional arrays of CdSe nanocrystals. In response to a step in the
applied voltage, we observe a power-law decay of the current over five orders
of magnitude in time. Furthermore, we observe no steady-state dark current for
fields up to 10^6 V/cm and times as long as 2x10^4 seconds. Although the
power-law form of the decay is quite general, there are quantitative variations
with temperature, applied field, sample history, and the material parameters of
the array. Despite evidence that the charge injected into the film during the
measurement causes the decay of current, we find field-scaling of the current
at all times. The observation of extremely long-lived current transients
suggests the importance of long-range Coulomb interactions between charges on
different nanocrystals.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure
Electric Field Effect in Ultrathin Films near the Superconductor-Insulator Transition
The effect of an electric field on the conductance of ultrathin films of
metals deposited on substrates coated with a thin layer of amorphous Ge was
investigated. A contribution to the conductance modulation symmetric with
respect to the polarity of the applied electric field was found in regimes in
which there was no sign of glassy behavior. For films with thicknesses that put
them on the insulating side of the superconductor-insulator transition, the
conductance increased with electric field, whereas for films that were becoming
superconducting it decreased. Application of magnetic fields to the latter,
which reduce the transition temperature and ultimately quench
superconductivity, changed the sign of the reponse of the conductance to
electric field back to that found for insulators. We propose that this
symmetric response to capacitive charging is a consequence of changes in the
conductance of the a-Ge layer, and is not a fundamental property of the physics
of the superconductor-insulator transition as previously suggested.Comment: 4 pages text, 4 figure
Reconstructing charge-carrier dynamics in porous silicon membranes from time-resolved interferometric measurements
We performed interferometric time-resolved simultaneous reflectance and transmittance measurements to investigate the carrier dynamics in pump-probe experiments on thin porous silicon membranes. The experimental data was analysed by using a method built on the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation and the Drude model, allowing us to reconstruct the excited carriers’ non-uniform distribution in space and its evolution in time. The analysis revealed that the carrier dynamics in porous silicon, with ~50% porosity and native oxide chemistry, is governed by the Shockley-Read-Hall recombination process with a characteristic time constant of 375 picoseconds, whereas diffusion makes an insignificant contribution as it is suppressed by the high rate of scattering
Electrical transport studies of quench condensed Bi films at the initial stage of film growth: Structural transition and the possible formation of electron droplets
The electrical transport properties of amorphous Bi films prepared by
sequential quench deposition have been studied in situ. A
superconductor-insulator (S-I) transition was observed as the film was made
increasingly thicker, consistent with previous studies. Unexpected behavior was
found at the initial stage of film growth, a regime not explored in detail
prior to the present work. As the temperature was lowered, a positive
temperature coefficient of resistance (dR/dT > 0) emerged, with the resistance
reaching a minimum before the dR/dT became negative again. This behavior was
accompanied by a non-linear and asymmetric I-V characteristic. As the film
became thicker, conventional variable-range hopping (VRH) was recovered. We
attribute the observed crossover in the electrical transport properties to an
amorphous to granular structural transition. The positive dR/dT found in the
amorphous phase of Bi formed at the initial stage of film growth was
qualitatively explained by the formation of metallic droplets within the
electron glass.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
Dielectric properties of porous silicon for use as a substrate for the on-chip integration of millimeter-wave devices in the frequency range 140 to 210 GHz
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