Glassy Dynamics in Disordered Electronic Systems Reveal Striking Thermal Memory Effects

Eisenbach, Ariel; Havdala, T.; Delahaye, Julien; Grenet, T.; Amir, Ariel; Frydman, A.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.117.116601

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Rather, the added crease length is determined only by the current total crease length and the new compaction depth. While processes that evolve logarithmically in time are readily observed in a variety of disordered physical systems, including stress or strain relaxation of a compacted sheet [17][18][19] , conductance relaxation of disordered electronic systems 20 , and creep dynamics of granular suspensions 21 , the emergence of a logarithmic model in the specific context of damage evolution in crumpled sheets is clearly distinct, and has had limited physical justification thus far.…”

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confidence: 99%

A model for the fragmentation kinetics of crumpled thin sheets

et al. 2021

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As a confined thin sheet crumples, it spontaneously segments into flat facets delimited by a network of ridges. Despite the apparent disorder of this process, statistical properties of crumpled sheets exhibit striking reproducibility. Experiments have shown that the total crease length accrues logarithmically when repeatedly compacting and unfolding a sheet of paper. Here, we offer insight to this unexpected result by exploring the correspondence between crumpling and fragmentation processes. We identify a physical model for the evolution of facet area and ridge length distributions of crumpled sheets, and propose a mechanism for re-fragmentation driven by geometric frustration. This mechanism establishes a feedback loop in which the facet size distribution informs the subsequent rate of fragmentation under repeated confinement, thereby producing a new size distribution. We then demonstrate the capacity of this model to reproduce the characteristic logarithmic scaling of total crease length, thereby supplying a missing physical basis for the observed phenomenon.

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confidence: 99%

A model for the fragmentation kinetics of crumpled thin sheets

et al. 2021

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“…Indeed in some of them, in the appropriate resistance range, these occur up to room temperature. [9][10][11] The technique can be very useful to analyze memory effects, and combined with conductance measurements, may shine light on the mechanisms involved.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These glassy effects were first limited to low temperature T , but they have recently been observed at room temperature in discontinuous Au 9 , amorphous NbSi 10 and granular Al films 11 . In addition, high resolution techniques such as scanning force microscopy (SFM) open the possibility of studying these systems at room temperature allowing a detailed real space analysis of the problem.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Charging of highly resistive granular metal films

et al. 2017

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We have used the Scanning Kelvin probe microscopy technique to monitor the charging process of highly resistive granular thin films. The sample is connected to two leads and is separated by an insulator layer from a gate electrode. When a gate voltage is applied, charges enter from the leads and rearrange across the sample. We find very slow processes with characteristic charging times exponentially distributed over a wide range of values, resulting in a logarithmic relaxation to equilibrium. After the gate voltage has been switched off, the system again relaxes logarithmically slowly to the new equilibrium. The results cannot be explained with diffusion models, but most of them can be understood with a hopping percolation model, in which the localization length is shorter than the typical site separation. The technique is very promising for the study of slow phenomena in highly resistive systems and will be able to estimate the conductance of these systems when direct macroscopic measurement techniques are not sensitive enough.

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“…In discontinuous metal films (gold, etc. ), a marked slowdown upon cooling was highlighted, giving rise to the formation of large frozen MDs [22,23,24]. More recently, we demonstrated that at low temperature the MD dynamics of granular Al films is thermally activated [25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…However, the T variation of the slow dynamics was found to be essentially of the Arrhenius type, with an activation energy of the order of 30 K which does not depend much on the resistance of the films. In discontinuous gold films, a different protocol has been used: the erasure of a MD formed at T 1 and during the cooling to T 2 is measured at T 2 and compared with the formation of a new isothermal MD at T 2 [22,23]. Signs of a strong temperature dependence of the dynamics are present since the MDs formed upon cooling between T 1 and T 2 cannot be significantly erased by subsequent V g changes at low temperatures, even after days of measurements.…”

Section: Arrhenius Law Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Electron glass effects in amorphous NbSi films

et al. 2020

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We report on non equilibrium field effect in insulating amorphous NbSi thin films having different Nb contents and thicknesses. The hallmark of an electron glass, namely the logarithmic growth of a memory dip in conductance versus gate voltage curves, is observed in all the films after a cooling from room temperature to 4.2 K. A very rich phenomenology is demonstrated. While the memory dip width is found to strongly vary with the film parameters, as was also observed in amorphous indium oxide films, screening lengths and temperature dependence of the dynamics are closer to what is observed in granular Al films. Our results demonstrate that the differentiation between continuous and discontinuous systems is not relevant to understand the discrepancies reported between various systems in the electron glass features. We suggest instead that they are not of fundamental nature and stem from differences in the protocols used and in the electrical inhomogeneity length scales within each material.

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Glassy Dynamics in Disordered Electronic Systems Reveal Striking Thermal Memory Effects

Cited by 14 publications

References 38 publications

A model for the fragmentation kinetics of crumpled thin sheets

A model for the fragmentation kinetics of crumpled thin sheets

Charging of highly resistive granular metal films

Electron glass effects in amorphous NbSi films

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