Metal-insulator transition in electric field: A viewpoint from the switching effect

Abstract

The proposed switching mechanism is based on an electronically-induced metal-insulator transition occurring in conditions of the excess non-equilibrium carrier density under the applied electric field. First, this mechanism is developed on the basis of a phenomenological approach. This model not only allows the qualitative description of the switching mechanism, but it is in quantitative agreement with the experimental results, in particular, with those concerning the critical concentration and threshold field. The mechanism takes into account the dependence of the carrier density on electric field, as well as the scaling of the critical field. Next, we show that such a 'macroscopic' approach can be supported by some microscopic model. The quintessence of this approach consists in the fact that an electronically induced metal-insulator transition may be described in terms of Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) formalism developed earlier for the charge density wave concept. It is shown that for the combination of both the types of interaction (electron-electron and electron-phonon), the formation of a collective excitation - an electron crystal of charge density wave - in the model of exciton insulator is possible, which, in a general case, can also be accompanied by a structural transition. The results for vanadium dioxide are examined within the frameworks of the developed approach.