History dependence, memory and metastability in electron glasses

Abstract

We discuss the history dependence and memory effects which are observed in the out-of-equilibrium conductivity of electron glasses. The experiments can be understood by assuming that the local density of states retains a memory of the sample history. We provide analytical arguments for the consistency of this assumption, and discuss the saturation of the memory effect with increasing gate voltage change. This picture is bolstered by numerical simulations at zero temperature, which moreover demonstrate the incompressibility of the Coulomb glass on short timescales.