Many electron theory of 1/f-noise in hopping conductivity

TL;DR

This paper presents a many-electron theoretical model explaining 1/f-noise in hopping conductivity, linking it to slow transitions of electron clusters and their temperature-dependent fluctuation times, aligning with experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel many-electron cluster transition model for 1/f-noise in hopping regimes, emphasizing the role of slow tunneling and activation barriers.

Findings

Giant fluctuation times arise from slow electron tunneling and large activation barriers.

The Hooge constant increases sharply as temperature decreases.

Qualitative agreement with experimental data on silicon and GaAs.

Abstract

We show that $1/f$-noise in the variable range hopping regime is related to transitions of many-electrons clusters (fluctuators) between two almost degenerate states. Giant fluctuation times necessary for $1/f$-noise are provided by slow rate of simultaneous tunneling of many localized electrons and by large activation barriers for their consecutive rearrangements. The Hooge constant steeply grows with decreasing temperature because it is easier to find a slow fluctuator at lower temperatures. Our conclusions qualitatively agree with the low temperature observations of $1/f$-noise in p-type silicon and GaAs.