Coulomb Drag at the Onset of Anderson Insulators

Abstract

It is shown that the Coulomb drag between two identical layers in the Anderson insulting state indicates a striking difference between the Mott and Efros-Shklovskii (ES) insulators. In the former, the trans-resistance $ρ_t$ is monotonically increasing with the localization length $ξ$; in the latter, the presence of a Coulomb gap leads to an opposite result: $ρ_t$ is enhanced with a decreasing $ξ$, with the same exponential factor as the single layer resistivity. This distinction reflects the relatively pronounced role of excited density fluctuations in the ES state, implied by the enhancement in the rate of hopping processes at low frequencies. The magnitude of drag is estimated for typical experimental parameters in the different cases. It is concluded that a measurement of drag can be used to distinguish between interacting and non-interacting insulating state.