The mechanism of electrical conduction in glassy semiconductors

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kurnosov, Arkady, Lubchenko, Vassiliy
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Kurnosov, Arkady
Lubchenko, Vassiliy
author_facet Kurnosov, Arkady
Lubchenko, Vassiliy
contents We argue that the dominant charge carrier in glassy semiconducting alloys is a compound particle in the form of an electron or hole bound to an intimate pair of topological lattice defects; the particle is similar to the polaron solution of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger Hamiltonian. The spatial component of the density of states for these special polarons is determined by the length scale of spatial modulation of electronegativity caused by a separate set of standalone topological defects. The latter length scale is fixed by the cooperativity size for structural relaxation; the size is largely independent of temperature in the glass but above melting, it decreases with temperature. Thus we predict that the temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity should exhibit a jump in the slope near the glass transition; the size of the jump is predicted to increase with the fragility of the melt. The predicted values of the jump and of the conductivity itself are consistent with experiment.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_04829
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The mechanism of electrical conduction in glassy semiconductors
Kurnosov, Arkady
Lubchenko, Vassiliy
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
We argue that the dominant charge carrier in glassy semiconducting alloys is a compound particle in the form of an electron or hole bound to an intimate pair of topological lattice defects; the particle is similar to the polaron solution of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger Hamiltonian. The spatial component of the density of states for these special polarons is determined by the length scale of spatial modulation of electronegativity caused by a separate set of standalone topological defects. The latter length scale is fixed by the cooperativity size for structural relaxation; the size is largely independent of temperature in the glass but above melting, it decreases with temperature. Thus we predict that the temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity should exhibit a jump in the slope near the glass transition; the size of the jump is predicted to increase with the fragility of the melt. The predicted values of the jump and of the conductivity itself are consistent with experiment.
title The mechanism of electrical conduction in glassy semiconductors
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.04829