Signature of Electronic Correlations in the Optical Conductivity of the Doped Semiconductor Si:P

Abstract

Electronic transport in highly doped but still insulating silicon at low temperatures is dominated by hopping between localized states; it serves as a model system of a disordered solid for which the electronic interaction can be investigated. We have studied the frequency-dependent conductivity of phosphorus-doped silicon in the THz frequency range (30 GHz to 3 THz) at low temperatures $T\geq 1.8$ K. The crossover in the optical conductivity from a linear to a quadratic frequency dependence as predicted by Efros and Shklovskii is observed qualitatively; however, the simple model does not lead to a quantitative agreement. Covering a large range of donor concentration, our temperature- and frequency-dependent investigations reveal that electronic correlation effects between the localized states play an important and complex role at low temperatures. In particular we find a super-linear frequency dependence of the conductivity that highlights the influence of the density of states, i.e. the Coulomb gap, on the optical conductivity. When approaching the metal-to-insulator transition by increasing doping concentration, the dielectric constant and the localization length exhibit critical behavior.