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Jumps in Current-Voltage Characteristics in Disordered Films

Boris L. Altshuler, Vladimir E. Kravtsov, Igor V. Lerner, and Igor L. Aleiner
Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 176803 – Published 28 April 2009
Physics logo See Synopsis: Overheated electrons in disordered films

Abstract

We argue that giant jumps of current at finite voltages observed in disordered films of InO, TiN, and YSi manifest a bistability caused by the overheating of electrons. One of the stable states is overheated and thus low resistive, while the other, high-resistive state is heated much less by the same voltage. The bistability occurs provided that cooling of electrons is inefficient and the temperature dependence of the equilibrium resistance R(T) is steep enough. We use experimental R(T) and assume phonon mechanism of the cooling taking into account its strong suppression by disorder. Our description of the details of the IV characteristics does not involve adjustable parameters and turns out to be in quantitative agreement with the experiments. We propose experiments for more direct checks of this physical picture.

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  • Received 28 January 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.176803

©2009 American Physical Society

Synopsis

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Overheated electrons in disordered films

Published 11 May 2009

Giant jumps in the current-voltage characteristics of disordered films could be the first evidence that electron transport in insulators can occur in the absence of phonons.

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Authors & Affiliations

Boris L. Altshuler1,2, Vladimir E. Kravtsov3, Igor V. Lerner4, and Igor L. Aleiner1

  • 1Physics Department, Columbia University, 538 West 120th Street, New York, New York 10027, USA
  • 2NEC-Laboratories America, Inc., 4 Independence Way, Princeton, New Jersey 085540, USA
  • 3The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, P.O. Box 586, 34100 Trieste, Italy
  • 4School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom

See Also

Electron-Phonon Decoupling in Disordered Insulators

M. Ovadia, B. Sacépé, and D. Shahar
Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 176802 (2009)

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Issue

Vol. 102, Iss. 17 — 1 May 2009

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