Anomalous Tunneling Systems in Amorphous Organic Materials

TL;DR

This paper investigates anomalous heat release behaviors in amorphous organic materials and proposes a phenomenological model involving reduced barrier heights due to local stress, challenging the standard tunneling model.

Contribution

It introduces a new phenomenological explanation for anomalous tunneling behavior in amorphous organic materials, extending understanding beyond the standard model.

Findings

Anomalous heat release observed in organic glasses and crystalline solids.

Most experimental observations explained by the proposed model.

Standard tunneling model does not account for all behaviors.

Abstract

We compare the heat release data of organic glasses with that of amorphous and glass like crystalline solids. Anomalous behavior was found in all these materials, which disagrees with the standard tunneling model. We can explain the most of the experimental observations within a phenomenological model, where we assume that for a part of tunneling systems the barrier heights are strongly reduced as a consequence of the local stress produced during the cooling process.