Current-Voltage characteristics of disordered electronic system under application of electric field.

Electron wave function in a disordered potential tends to localize in space, a phenomenon well known as Anderson localization where the system behaves predominantly as an insulator. Transport in such localized system occurs via mechanism of variable range hopping (VRH). Focus of this study is the effect of DC bias on the transport of localized of electrons. We develop a quantum mechanical model of disordered electronic system under a constant electric field coupled to a bath and compute the IV characteristics and localization properties of the system. Our preliminary analysis indicates nonlinear scaling behavior of the conductance of a disordered system in the high field and low field regime. We find that there are significant differences in the nonlinear behavior under bias between our electronic model and the statistical resistor network theory[1] of disordered systems. We highlight electric field-assisted VRH as a possible mechanism for conduction in disordered electronic systems.

[1] Rodin, A. S., and Fogler, M. M. (2009). Physical Review B, 80(15), 155435.