Off-equilibrium dynamics of the two-dimensional Coulomb glass

TL;DR

This study uses kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to explore the off-equilibrium dynamics of the 2D Coulomb glass, revealing a zero-temperature freezing transition, aging phenomena, and slow Coulomb gap formation, relevant to insulating film experiments.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the slow dynamics, aging, and Coulomb gap formation in the 2D Coulomb glass through detailed simulation analysis.

Findings

Relaxation time diverges exponentially indicating a zero-temperature transition.

System exhibits aging in charge correlations and response to perturbations.

Coulomb gap forms slowly, with the density of states decaying as a power law.

Abstract

The dynamics of the 2D Coulomb glass model is investigated by kinetic Monte Carlo simulation. An exponential divergence of the relaxation time signals a zero-temperature freezing transition. At low temperatures the dynamics of the system is glassy. The local charge correlations and the response to perturbations of the local potential show aging. The dynamics of formation of the Coulomb gap is slow and the density of states at the Fermi level decays in time as a power law. The relevance of these findings for recent transport experiments in Anderson-insulating films is pointed out.