Effects of many-electron jumps in relaxation and conductivity of Coulomb glasses

TL;DR

This paper investigates how many-electron jumps influence energy relaxation and conductivity in Coulomb glasses, revealing that multi-electron transitions help overcome energy barriers that hinder single-electron processes.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical analysis of multi-electron transitions in Coulomb glasses using kinetic Monte Carlo and master equation methods, highlighting their significance in relaxation and conduction.

Findings

Two-electron transitions bypass energy barriers.

Multi-electron jumps significantly affect conductivity.

Proper transition rate calculations are essential for modeling.

Abstract

A numerical study of the energy relaxation and conductivity of the Coulomb glass is presented. The role of many-electron transitions is studied by two complementary methods: a kinetic Monte Carlo algorithm and a master equation in configuration space method. A calculation of the transition rate for two-electron transitions is presented, and the proper extension of this to multi-electron transitions is discussed. It is shown that two-electron transitions are important in bypassing energy barriers which effectively block sequential one-electron transitions. The effect of two-electron transitions is also discussed.