Artigo Acesso aberto Revisado por pares

Voltage-Induced Tunneling Conduction in Granular Metals at Low Temperatures

1972; American Physical Society; Volume: 28; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevlett.28.34

ISSN

1092-0145

Autores

Ping Sheng, B. Abeles,

Tópico(s)

Semiconductor materials and devices

Resumo

We have observed a new conduction mechanism in granular metals at low temperatures and high electric fields $\mathcal{E}$ characterized by a field-dependent conductivity ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{0}\mathrm{exp}(\frac{\ensuremath{-}{\mathcal{E}}_{0}}{\mathcal{E}})$. A theory based on a simple model of field-induced electron-hole generation in the bulk of the granular metal predicts the observed field dependence and gives expressions for ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{0}$ and ${\mathcal{E}}_{0}$ which are functions of the granular-metal parameters: metal grain size, and thickness and height of the tunneling barriers separating the metal grains. Agreement between theory and experiment is satisfactory.

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