Infrared-Induced Sluggish Dynamics in the GeSbTe Electron Glass

TL;DR

This study shows that infrared light can significantly slow down the electron-glass dynamics in GeSbTe films, highlighting the importance of carrier-concentration over disorder and suggesting many-body effects influence sluggish electron-glass behavior.

Contribution

It reveals that carrier-concentration changes, rather than disorder, predominantly affect electron-glass dynamics, implying many-body effects are involved.

Findings

Infrared illumination increases carrier-concentration and slows dynamics.

Electron-glass behavior is more sensitive to carrier-concentration than disorder.

Many-body effects like Orthogonality Catastrophe may influence sluggish dynamics.

Abstract

The electron-glass dynamics of Anderson-localized GeSbTe films is dramatically slowed-down following a brief infrared illumination that increases the system carrier-concentration (and thus its conductance). These results demonstrate that the dynamics exhibited by electron-glasses is more sensitive to carrier-concentration than to disorder. In turn, this seems to imply that many-body effects such as the Orthogonality Catastrophe must play a role in the sluggish dynamics observed in the intrinsic electron-glasses.