Results in Physics 7 (2017) 134–135

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Results in Physics
journal homepage: www.journals.elsevier.com/results-in-physics

Microarticle

Dependence of conductivity on thickness within the variable-range

hopping regime for Coulomb glasses
M. Caravaca ⇑, M. Fernández-Martínez, A. Soto
University Centre of Defence at the Spanish Air Force Academy, C/Coronel López Peña, 30720 Santiago de la Ribera, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, we provide some computational evidence concerning the dependence of conductivity on
Received 27 October 2016 the system thickness for Coulomb glasses. We also verify the Efros–Shklovskii law and deal with the cal-
Received in revised form 29 November 2016 culation of its characteristic parameter as a function of the thickness. Our results strengthen the link
Accepted 30 November 2016
between theoretical and experimental fields.
Available online 21 December 2016
Ó 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Keywords:
Coulomb glass
Conductivity
Density of states
Efros–Shklovskii law

Introduction cial to understand the nature of these kinds of systems. They

Coulomb glasses (CG) are systems characterized by strong local-
ization of the wavefunctions of the electronic states due to disor-
der, where long-range Coulomb interactions between carriers
play a key role [1]. CG present glassy behavior and the blend of dis-
order and interaction lead to a gap in the single-particle density of
states (DOS), gðeÞ, close to the Fermi level, described at zero tem-
perature by
gðeÞ / je  eF jd1 ;
include the existence of effective temperatures and the response
to high electric fields [3,4]. Some authors have highlighted experi-
mentally that conductivity within the variable-range hopping
regime depends on the sample thickness [5], though numerical sim-
ulations in this sense remain scarce. In this paper, we provide com-
putational evidence via MC simulations regarding the strong
dependence of conductivity on thickness of CG samples and show
that the ES law holds for a appropriate range of values. Moreover,
we also show the difference between bulk and surface DOS.
ð1Þ

where e is the site energy, eF is the energy of the Fermi level, and d is
the dimension of the system [2]. The effect of finite temperature is
to round the bottom of the DOS, when e  eF ! 0. It is worth point-
ing out that conductivity r within the linear regime follows the
Efros–Shklovskii variable-range hopping (ES) law, which is inde-
pendent of d [1,2]:
r / exp½ðT 0 =TÞ2 Þ;
1
ð2Þ
where T is the temperature and T 0 is a characteristic temperature.
Monte Carlo (MC) approaches play an essential role to deal with
the simulation of CG. Strongly connected with theory and experi-
ments, they have shed light on several aspects which become cru-
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: manuel.caravaca@cud.upct.es (M. Caravaca), manuel.fernan-
dez-martinez@cud.upct.es (M. Fernández-Martínez), antonio.soto@cud.upct.es (A.
Soto).
Mathematical model and numerical details
The Hamiltonian of the CG model is given by
X X ðni  KÞðnj  KÞ X
H¼ /i ni þ þ Exi ;
i i<j
r ij i
where ni is the occupancy number of site i (which can equal 0 or 1),
rij is the distance between sites i and j; /i is the so-called random
site potential, and K is the compensation. In addition, E denotes
the applied electric field and xi refers to the horizontal component
of the position vector of the i-th impurity [1,2]. We investigate
the behavior of conductivity of semiconductor samples doped with
impurities randomly placed, within the regime of strong localiza-
tion. Transitions between states are held by electron jumps
between impurities in the regime of variable range hopping [3].
The position of the electron matches that of the impurity since
the length of the localization is quite small. We study samples of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rinp.2016.11.066
2211-3797/Ó 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 M. Caravaca et al. / Results in Physics 7 (2017) 134–135 135

dimensions L  L  Z, where L is the lateral dimension of the plane

surface and Z is the thickness, Z < L. To show real experimental con-
ditions, we build the system by implementing periodic boundary
conditions only in the surface, which simulates a more realistic
experimental situation. Units employed can be found out in the
Supplementary Material section.

Results and discussion

In Fig. 1, we highlight that bulk and surface DOS are different.

The results correspond to T ¼ 0:03 and a number of sites
np ¼ 30  30  3. Notice that the surface DOS is greater than the
bulk one inside the gap. This fact has direct influence in the con-
ductivity of the samples, which will be greater in the surface. Nev-
ertheless, our data do not allow us to determine whether the red
curve behaves linearly in the inner zone of the gap, as Eq. (1)
may suggest, since the straight section of the DOS is short, rounded
in the upper zone by the top of the gap and in the lower zone by
the effect of temperature. We have obtained similar results for
other ranges of temperatures and sizes.
To show the dependence of the conductivity on the depth of the
system, we have calculated the stationary conductivity of the
whole sample as a function of Z by two equivalent ways. First,
we determine it from the displacement of the center of charge of
the sample, once reached the stationary state. Alternatively, we
calculate r by the number of electrons crossing the Z  L section
of the sample. Both results agree. In Fig. 2(top) we show the depen-
dence of r on Z for a system of dimensions np ¼ 30  30  Z with Z Fig. 2. (top) Dependence of coductivity r within the linear regime on thickness Z
ranging from 1 to 7 for three temperatures: T ¼ 0:03 (black (ranging from 1 to 7). (bottom) Dependence of the ES law (main) and T 0 (detail) on
squares), T ¼ 0:05 (red dots), and T ¼ 0:1 (green triangles). Loga- thickness. Systems of sizes 30  30  Z.

rithmic scale was used on the vertical axis. The plot suggests that
there exists a strong dependence of conductivity on thickness.
which becomes compatible with the theoretical value (equal to
The asymptotic behavior of all curves may indicate that the system
2:8) appeared in the literature [1].
is close to the 3D limit, where conductivity should no longer
depend on Z.
Efros–Shklovskii law (c.f. Eq. (2)), also depends on thickness. In Conclusions
Fig. 2 (bottom), we compare T 1=2
vs. rT (vertical logarithmic scale)
(a) For a certain value of the thickness, the surface DOS is higher
for np ¼ 30  30  Z, with Z ranging from 1 to 7. The linear behav-
than the bulk one. (b) The conductivity depends on the thickness.
ior in all curves suggests that the ES law also stands for small val-
(c) The ES law has been verified for a discrete range of values
ues of the thickness though the slope of the linear fit decreases as Z
and T 0 has been calculated within it. (d) T 0 becomes compatible
increases. Accordingly, the characteristic temperature of Eq. (2), T 0 ,
with its 3D limit.
has a strong dependence on the thickness. From a certain value of
Z, the slopes become quite similar and the data start to overlap,
which is strongly indicative that the system is close to the 3D limit. Appendix A. Supplementary data
In the inset of Fig. 2 (bottom), it has been shown the dependence of
T 0 on Z. For greater values of the thickness, T 0 is very close to 2, Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rinp.2016.11.066.

References

[1] Shklovskii BI, Efros AL. Electronic properties of doped semiconductors, Springer
series in solid-state sciences, Vol 45. Berlin-Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag; 1984.
[2] Pollak M, Ortuño M, Frydman A. The electron glass. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press; 2013.
[3] Somoza AM, Ortuño M, Caravaca M, Pollak M. Phys Rev Lett 2008;101:056601.
[4] Caravaca M, Somoza AM, Ortuño M. Phys Rev B 2010;82:134204.
[5] Tran TB, Beloborodov IS, Lin XM, Bigioni TP, Vinokur VM, Jaeger HM. Phys Rev
Lett 2005;95:076806.

Fig. 1. Surface (red curve) and bulk (black curve) DOS for a CG system of
dimensions 30  30  3 at T ¼ 0:03.