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# Theory of the Shubnikov-de Haas effect in quasi-two-dimensional metals

## I Introduction

Magnetic quantum oscillations were discovered long ago and were frequently used as a powerful tool of studying the geometry of Fermi surfaces and other electronic properties of various metals. In recent years, quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) organic metals  attract great interest because many new unconventional effects are very pronounced in these compounds. These effects are high-Tc superconductivity, spin and charge density waves, strong anisotropic magnetic quantum oscillations etc. Much work was devoted to studying magnetic quantum oscillations in these compounds (for a review see e.g. ). The quantum oscillations of magnetization are a thermodynamic effect that is completely determined by the density-of-states distribution. Any exact calculation of the electron density of states (DoS) is a very complicated problem but a semi-phenomenological description of magnetization oscillations in quasi-2D compounds was recently provided in a number of theoretical papers . The chemical potential oscillations and the arbitrary electron reservoir due to the open sheets of the Fermi surface create no principal difficulties. Since the number of occupied LLs is very large ($`n_F>100`$) in most quasi-2D organic metals, the effect of the electron-electron interaction is reduced (as in the Fermi liquid) and can be taken into account via the renormalization of the electron effective parameters. Differences in Landau level shape (which depends on a particular compound) lead to only limited quantitative differences in magnetization curves yielding no qualitatively new effects. On the qualitative level, therefore, the de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) effect in quasi-2D normal metals is believed to be well understood.

Attempts of theoretical description of the quasi-2D Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) effect were not as successful although some work on this subject appeared in recent years . There are still many open qualitative questions.

One of these open questions is the origin of the phase shift in the beats of the resistivity oscillations with respect to those in the magnetization. The beat behavior of the oscillations in quasi-2D metals is known reliably to originate from a slight warping of their Fermi surfaces in the direction normal to the 2D plane. The superposition of the contributions from the maximum and minimum cyclotron orbits leads to an amplitude modulation of the $`k`$-th harmonic by the factor $`\mathrm{cos}(2\pi k\mathrm{\Delta }F/2B\pi /4)`$, where $`B`$ is the magnetic field and $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=(c\mathrm{}/2\pi e)(A_{max}A_{min})`$ is the difference between the oscillation frequencies caused by the extreme orbits with the $`k`$-space areas $`A_{max}`$ and $`A_{min}`$, respectively . From the beat frequency one can readily evaluate the warping of the Fermi surface and hence the interlayer transfer integral $`4tϵ_F\mathrm{\Delta }F/F`$ (see e.g. ). The situation becomes less clear when the warping is so weak that less than one half of the beat period can be observed experimentally. In principle, an observation of one single node would already be quite informative , provided the phase offset (i.e. the phase of the beat at $`1/B0`$) is known. In the standard Lifshitz-Kosevich (L-K) theory  this phase offset is strictly determined by geometrical reasons and is equal to $`\pi /4`$ for both the dHvA and SdH effects . However recent experiments on layered organic metals $`\kappa `$-(BEDT-TTF)2 Cu\[N(CN)2\]Br  and (BEDT-TTF)4\[Ni(dto)2\]  revealed a significant difference in the node positions of the beats of dHvA and SdH signals. The phase shift in the latter compound was estimated to be as big as $`\pi /2`$.

Another very interesting phenomenon (also not explained in the framework of the standard theory) is slow oscillations of magnetoresistance that were observed in a number of quasi-2D organic metals . The behavior of slow oscillations resembles that of the SdH effect that lead to a suggestion of additional, very small Fermi surface pockets in these materials. However, band structure calculations (basically giving a good description of the electron band structure and of the Fermi surface topology in organic metals) show no evidence of such small pockets in any of these compounds. Moreover, while slow oscillations are often very pronounced in magnetoresistance, sometimes even dominating the oscillation spectrum, thus far no analogous observation in oscillating magnetization (dHvA effect) was reported. Certainly, slow oscillations carry useful information about the compounds but one needs some theoretical explanation and, desirably, a quantitative description of the phenomenon to extract this information. Note that in both cases the oscillation spectrum was strongly dominated by the first harmonic when no substantial deviations from the standard L-K theory are expected.

An explanation and the qualitative description of phase shift of beats (which is based on the Boltzmann transport equation) was proposed recently  together with a comparative experimental study of this effect. An idea that the slow oscillation may arise as an entanglement of different rapidly oscillating contributing factors in conductivity which have slowly oscillating amplitudes due to beats was also recently suggested in  and proved by presenting experimental results on temperature and angular dependences of slow oscillations. In this paper we give a more accurate theoretical description of these phenomena as well as a detailed calculation of the interlayer conductivity in quasi-2D metals in strong magnetic field.

In sec. II the general formula (14) is derived. The calculation is performed starting from the Kubo formula. The result of this calculation differs from that obtained using the Boltzmann transport equation. The origin of this difference is pointed out. The additional term is shown to be a general feature of conductivity in magnetic field. However it becomes essential only in the quasi-2D case. The simple explicit formula for interlayer conductivity is obtained in the self-consistent Born approximation in sec. III. A discussion of the reliability and possible application of the results obtained is given in sec. IV.

## II General formula for interlayer conductivity

We consider a quasi-2D metal in magnetic field perpendicular to the conducting layers: $`\stackrel{}{B}\stackrel{}{z}`$. The electron spectrum of quasi-2D electron gas in magnetic field is then given by

$$ϵ(n,k_z)=\mathrm{}\omega _c(n+1/2)2t\mathrm{cos}(k_zd)$$
(1)
where $`t`$ is the interlayer transfer integral, $`k_z`$ is the wavevector perpendicular to the layers, $`d`$ is the interlayer distance, $`\omega _c=eB/m^{}c`$ is the cyclotron frequency. Both $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ and $`t`$ are assumed to be much smaller than the Fermi energy.

To calculate conductivity we use the Kubo formula . The procedure is similar to that in three-dimensional metals without magnetic field (, § 7.1.2). In magnetic field only the new set of quantum numbers $`m\{n,k_z,k_y\}`$ should be used instead of momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ and the alternative dispersion relation (1). The evaluation of the Kubo formula without vertex corrections gives

$$\sigma _{zz}=\frac{e^2\mathrm{}}{V}\underset{m}{}v_z^2(m)\frac{dϵ}{2\pi }A^2(m,ϵ)\left(n_F^{}(ϵ)\right)$$
(2)
where the volume $`V`$ normalizes the sum over quantum numbers $`m`$ , $`e`$ is the electron charge, the limits of the integral over $`ϵ`$ are $`(\mathrm{};\mathrm{})`$, $`n_F^{}(ϵ)`$ is the derivative of the Fermi distribution function:

$$n_F^{}(ϵ)=1/\{4T\mathrm{cosh}^2\left[(ϵ\mu )/2T\right]\}$$
(3)
and $`A(m,ϵ)`$ is the spectral function that is related to the electron Green’s function $`G^R(m,ϵ)`$ or to the retarded self-energy part $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,ϵ):`$

$$A(m,ϵ)2\text{Im}G^R(m,ϵ)=\frac{2\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,ϵ)}{\left[ϵϵ(m)\text{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,ϵ)\right]^2+\left[\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,ϵ)\right]^2}$$
(4)
Formula (2) is close to the corresponding formula without magnetic field \[, formula (7.1.10)\] until the self-energy part $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,ϵ)`$ is specified. It arises mainly from impurity scattering. The main contribution to resistivity comes from the short-range impurity scattering. We approximate short-range impurities by point-like ones. Then, if one does not take into account the diagrams with intersections of impurity lines in the self-energy (the contribution of such diagrams at finite $`k_z`$ dispersion of electrons is usually small) the electron self-energy depends only on electron energy and not on electron quantum numbers. This fact greatly simplifies the calculations because the sum over quantum numbers $`m`$ in formula (2) can be now computed analytically. The constant part of the real part $`\text{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)`$ of electron self-energy produces only a constant shift of the chemical potential. It does not influence the physical effects and, hence, is omitted in the subsequent calculations. The small oscillating part $`\text{Re}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}^R(ϵ)`$ of $`\text{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)`$ enters the final expression for conductivity in the second order in small damping factors. Hence, it can affect slow oscillations of conductivity and should be kept in accurate quantitative analysis. It always come in the combination $`ϵ^{}ϵ\text{Re}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}^R(ϵ)`$.

On the contrary, the imaginary part of self-energy $`\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)`$ is very important since it describes the momentum relaxation of electrons.

Performing the summation over $`k_y`$ in (2) and changing integration over $`k_z`$ by integration over energy $`ϵ(n,k_z)`$ we get

$`\sigma _{zz}`$ $`=`$ $`e^2\mathrm{}N_{LL}{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle _0^\pi }{\displaystyle \frac{d(k_zd)}{\pi }}v_z^2(k_z){\displaystyle \frac{dϵ}{2\pi }A^2(ϵ(k_z,n),ϵ)\left(n_F^{}(ϵ)\right)}=`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`e^2N_{LL}d{\displaystyle \frac{dϵ^{}}{\pi }\underset{n}{}\left|v_z(ϵ^{},n)\right|\frac{dϵ}{2\pi }A^2(ϵ^{},ϵ)\left(n_F^{}(ϵ)\right)}`$ (6)
where $`N_{LL}B/\mathrm{\Phi }_0d`$ is the electron density on one Landau level and the electron velocity $`v_z(ϵ,n)`$ is given by (A3). To go further we have to transform the sum over LLs to a sum over harmonics. This can be done using the Poisson summation formula (Appendix A). Substituting (A7) into (6) we obtain:

$`\sigma _{zz}`$ $`=`$ $`e^2N_{LL}{\displaystyle \frac{dϵ^{}}{2\pi }\underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^k\frac{2td^2}{\mathrm{}k}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{2\pi ikϵ^{}}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)J_1\left(\frac{4\pi kt}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\frac{dϵ}{2\pi }A^2(ϵ^{},ϵ)\left(n_F^{}(ϵ)\right)}=`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`e^2N_{LL}{\displaystyle \underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(1)^k{\displaystyle \frac{2td^2}{\mathrm{}k}}J_1\left({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi kt}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{dϵ}{2\pi }\left(n_F^{}(ϵ)\right)I_z(ϵ,k)}`$ (8)
where one should use the expansion $`J_1(kx)/k=x/2`$ for the zeroth harmonic $`k=0`$, and the integral $`I_z(ϵ,k)`$ over $`ϵ^{}`$ can be easily evaluated with the spectral function (4):

$`I_z(ϵ,k)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dϵ^{}}{2\pi }A^2(ϵ^{},ϵ)\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{2\pi ikϵ^{}}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)}=`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dϵ^{}}{2\pi }\left(\frac{2\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)}{\left[ϵ^{}ϵ^{}\right]^2+\left[\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)\right]^2}\right)^2\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{2\pi ikϵ^{}}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)}=`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ikϵ^{}}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\left|\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)\right|}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi k}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)R_D(k,ϵ)`$ (11)
where $`ϵ^{}ϵ\text{Re}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}^R(ϵ)`$ and

$$R_D(k,ϵ)=\mathrm{exp}\left(2\pi \left|k\right|\left|\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)\right|/\mathrm{}\omega _c\right)$$
(12)
has the form similar to that of the usual Dingle factor $`R_D(k)=\mathrm{exp}\left(2\pi ^2kk_BT_D/\mathrm{}\omega _c\right)`$. Collecting formulas (8) and (11) we get

$`\sigma _{zz}`$ $`=`$ $`e^2N_{LL}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{dϵ}{2\pi }}(n_F^{}(ϵ)){\displaystyle \underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^k2td^2}{\mathrm{}k}}J_1\left({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi kt}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)\times `$ (14)
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ikϵ^{}}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\left|\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)\right|}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi k}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)R_D(k,ϵ).`$
Note that this expression has additional term $`2\pi k/\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ near the standard $`1/\left|\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)\right|`$ term in round brackets in the second line. This term can not be obtained from the Boltzmann transport equation (compare, for example, with the results of  and ) and it arises only due to quantization of electron energy spectrum in magnetic field. This quantization results in fast oscillations of the mean square electron velocity as function of energy which give rise to the rapidly oscillating factor $`\mathrm{exp}\left(2\pi ikϵ^{}/\mathrm{}\omega _c\right)`$ in (9). This factor appears only in magnetic field. The derivative of this factor with respect to $`ϵ^{}`$ comes after the integration over $`ϵ^{}`$ in (9) because the function $`A^2(ϵ^{},ϵ)=(G^AG^R)^2`$ has one second-order pole in each complex half-plane. These second-order poles arise from the combinations $`(G^A)^2`$ and $`(G^R)^2`$, where $`G^A`$ and $`G^R`$ are the advanced and retarded Green’s functions respectively. So, the additional term in (14) has quantum origin; it appears due to fast oscillations of the mean squared velocity at the Fermi level in magnetic field.

To go farther, we need an explicit form of the electron self-energy which enters formula (14). It is calculated is in the next section.

## III Conductivity in self-consistent Born approximation

We consider electron scattering only by short-range impurities because these impurities make the main contribution to the relaxation of electron momentum. To calculate the electron self-energy we use the self-consistent Born approximation. The graphical representation of the Dyson equation for the irreducible self-energy part in self-consistent Born approximation is shown in fig. 1. By such approximation we neglect multiple scattering on one impurity (no more than two dash lines go to one impurity in fig. 1). The single dash line in fig. 1 corresponds to the first-order term which leads only to a constant shift of the chemical potential and, hence, can be omitted.

The corresponding analytical expression is

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,ϵ)=\underset{i}{}U^2G(r_i,r_i,E)=C_iU^2d^3rG(r,r,E)$$
(15)
where $`_i`$ is a sum over all impurities and the brackets $`..`$ denote averaging over impurity positions, $`C_i`$ is concentration of impurities which are assumed to be uniformly distributed . The electron Green’s function $`G(r,r,E)`$ in formula (15) contains the self-energy determined by the same formula (15) (this is why the approximation (15) is called self-consistent Born approximation). The Green’s function is isotropic along the conducting planes. Hence, one can write

$$G(r,r,E)=\left|\varphi (z)\right|^2G(E),$$
(16)
where the electron wave function $`\varphi (z)`$ along $`z`$-axis does not enter the final result because it disappears after integration over $`z`$ in (15), and

$$G(E)=\frac{N_{LL}}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\left\{A(E)+i\pi \left[1+2\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^kJ_0\left(\frac{4\pi kt}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(2\pi ik\frac{E\mathrm{\Sigma }(E)}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\right]\right\}.$$
(17)
$`A(E)`$ is a slowly varying function of energy which can be taken at the Fermi energy. The exact form of this function is not important for conductivity in Born approximation. Formula (17) can be derived performing the summation over electron quantum numbers $`m\{n,k_z,k_x\}`$ in the definition of the Green’s function:

$$G(r,r,E)=\underset{n,k_z,k_x}{}\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_{n,k_z,k_x}^{}(r)\mathrm{\Psi }_{n,k_z,k_x}(r)}{Eϵ_{n,k_z}\mathrm{\Sigma }(E)}$$
(18)
where $`E_{n,k_z,k_x}`$is the electron energy in the state with quantum numbers $`m\{n,k_z,k_x\}`$ given by (1). The electron wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n,k_z,k_x}(r)`$ in Landau gauge is approximately given by

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n,k_z,k_x}(r)={\displaystyle \frac{e^{i(k_xx+k_zz)}}{\sqrt{L_xL_z}}}\chi _n(yy_0)\varphi (z)`$

where $`y_0=c\mathrm{}k_x/eB`$ and the normalization condition $`_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\left|\chi _n(y)\right|^2𝑑y=1`$ is used to perform integration over $`k_x`$. The further calculation of the sum in (18) is similar to that in (2).

The Born approximation (formula (15)) takes into account only the first term of expansion in the small parameter $`\pi UN_{LL}/\mathrm{}\omega _c=\pi f/d`$, where $`N_{LL}/\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ is equal to the electron density of states at the Fermi level in unit volume, $`f`$ is the scattering amplitude (which is constant at small wave vector $`q1/r_0`$, $`r_0`$ is the range of the impurity potential). For short-range impurities the parameter $`f/d`$ is usually small.

From (15) one can easily see that in Born approximation the imaginary part of self-energy is proportional to the density of states :

$$\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)=C_iU^2\text{Im}G(ϵ)=\pi C_iU^2\times \rho (ϵ).$$
(19)
The unknown coefficient $`C=\pi C_iU^2`$ in (19) is simply related to the average Dingle temperature $`T_D`$: $`\left|\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,ϵ)\right|=C\rho (ϵ)=C\left(N_{LL}/\mathrm{}\omega _c\right)(1+n_R)=\pi k_BT_D`$, where the triangular brackets mean an average value of a quantity inside, $`k_B=1.3810^{16}erg/K`$ is the Boltzmann constant and $`n_R`$ is the density of reservoir states that exist in many organic metals due to the open sheets of the FS.

In the extreme 2D case $`(\mathrm{}\omega _ct)`$, substantial deviations from formula (19) are possible because the strong degeneracy of the LLs makes the Born approximation not applicable. Since we consider the case $`2t>\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ (when the beats of the oscillations exist) and $`f/d1`$, we shall use (15) for our subsequent calculations that are now straightforward.

From the formulas (15, 16 and 17) we have

$$\left|\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,ϵ)\right|=\pi k_BT_D\left(1+2\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^kJ_0\left(\frac{4\pi kt}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{2\pi kϵ^{}}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)R_D(k,ϵ)\right).$$
(20)
Together with (12) this gives a nonlinear equation for $`\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,ϵ)`$. We can solve it in the strong harmonic damping limit using iteration procedure i.e. by making an expansion in the small oscillating part which is an expansion in a parameter $`\left(R_D\sqrt{\mathrm{}\omega _c/2\pi ^2t}\right).`$ To treat the slow oscillation accurately one has also to pick up all second-order slowly oscillating terms. We get

$$\left|\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)\right|\pi k_BT_D\left\{12J_0\left(\frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{2\pi ϵ}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)R_{0D}\right\}.$$
(21)
where $`R_{0D}=\mathrm{exp}\left(2\pi ^2k_BT_D/\mathrm{}\omega _c\right)`$. There is no slowly oscillating second-order term in the self energy in Born approximation. At this point the real part of the electron self energy was important because it canceled the contribution from the entanglement with the oscillations of the Dingle factor (12). In the second order in damping factors any combination of the form

$`\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi (ϵ\text{Re}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}^R(ϵ))}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \left|\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)\right|}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)=\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ϵ}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)R_{0D}`$

does not produce slowly oscillating term. This statement can be easily checked by substituting (15) with (17) into (20). If we neglected $`\text{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)`$ in (20) we would get an additional slowly oscillating term

$`\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ^2k_BT_D}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}J_0^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)R_{0D}^2\right\}`$

in curly brackets of (21) which arise from the mixing with the oscillating Dingle factor and enters not only the imaginary part of the self-energy but also the density of electron states (see (21)). The slow oscillations of $`\rho (ϵ)`$ would result in huge slow oscillations of magnetization which are increased by an additional factor $`ϵ_F/\mathrm{}\omega _c`$. Such huge slow oscillations of magnetization have surely not been observed and the result (21) is correct. Beyond the Born approximation the relation (19) is no more valid and $`\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)`$ acquires some slow oscillating term although $`\rho (ϵ)`$ does not. In the previous (unpublished) work  the real part of electron self-energy was disregarded and the entanglement with the oscillations of Dingle temperature (producing additional large contribution to the slow oscillations) was incorrectly taken into account.

Substituting (21) into (14) we obtain the following expression for the conductivity:

$`\sigma _{zz}=e^2N_{LL}{\displaystyle }dϵ(n_F^{}(ϵ)){\displaystyle \frac{2t^2d^2}{\mathrm{}^2\omega _c\pi k_BT_D}}\times `$

$`\times `$ $`\{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\frac{\mathrm{}\omega _c}{\pi t}J_1\left(\frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{2\pi ϵ^{}}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)R_D(ϵ)}{\left[12J_0\left(\frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{2\pi ϵ^{}}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)R_D(ϵ)\right]}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi k_BT_D}{t}}J_1\left({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ϵ^{}}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)R_D(ϵ)\}.`$
If the transfer integral is large enough, $`4\pi t>\mathrm{}\omega _c,`$ one can use the expansions of the Bessel function at large value of argument:

$`J_0(x)`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{2/\pi x}\mathrm{cos}\left(x\pi /4\right),x1`$ (22)
$`J_1(x)`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{2/\pi x}\mathrm{sin}\left(x\pi /4\right),x1.`$ (23)
Then performing again expansion in small parameter $`\left(R_D\sqrt{\mathrm{}\omega _c/2\pi ^2t}\right)`$ and making use of the standard trigonometric formulas we get

$`\sigma _{zz}={\displaystyle \frac{e^2N_{LL}2t^2d^2}{\mathrm{}^2\omega _c\pi k_BT_D}}\{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+2\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}\omega _c\left(1+a^2\right)}{2\pi ^2t}}}\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \mu }{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)\times `$ (24)
$`\times \mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{4}}+\varphi _b\right)R_DR_T+`$ (25)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}\omega _c}{2\pi ^2t}}R_D^{}^2\sqrt{1+a_S^2}\mathrm{cos}\left[2({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{4}}+\varphi _S)\right]\}`$ (26)
where the phase shift of beats is

$$\varphi _b=\mathrm{arctan}\left(a\right);a=\frac{\mathrm{}\omega _c}{2\pi t}\left(1+\frac{2\pi ^2k_BT_D}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)$$
(27)
and the phase of slow oscillations is

$$\varphi _S=\mathrm{arctan}\left(a_S\right)/2\text{ where }a_S=\mathrm{}\omega _c/2\pi t.$$
(28)
The star index in the Dingle factor $`R_D^{}`$ of slow oscillations is explained in the next section. The temperature smearing factor is given by the usual L-K expression:

$`R_T={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2k_BT/\mathrm{}\omega _c}{\mathrm{sinh}\left(2\pi ^2k_BT/\mathrm{}\omega _c\right)}}.`$

It appear in the fast Shubnikov oscillations after integration over energy of a rapidly oscillating function of energy with the Fermi distribution function. The slowly oscillating term depends only on the transfer integral $`t`$ and is independent of energy. Hence, it does not acquire any temperature smearing.

The phase shift (27) obtained from the Kubo formula is larger than that of \[, formula (9)\] obtained using the Boltzmann transport equation by a factor $`\left(1+2\pi ^2k_BT_D/\mathrm{}\omega _c\right).`$ This difference comes from the additional term $`2\pi k/\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ near $`1/\left|\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)\right|`$ in round brackets in the second line of (14). As has been noted after formula (14), this term has quantum origin. However, the result (25) and (28) concerning the slow oscillation does not differ from \[, formula (4)\]. Thus the Boltzmann transport equation and the Kubo formula in self-consistent Born approximation give the same amplitude and phase of slow oscillations.

## IV Discussion of the results

In this paper a detailed calculation of the interlayer magnetotransport in quasi-2D normal metals is performed. The specific features of quasi-two-dimensionality and strong magnetic field result in pronounced qualitative effects such as the phase shift of beats of conductivity oscillations and the slow oscillations which cannot be described in the framework of the standard three-dimensional theory usually applied to quasi-2D compounds. The beats of magnetoresistance oscillations in layered compounds are used for estimating the interlayer transfer integral which strongly influences different electronic properties of strongly anisotropic compounds. The field-dependent phase shift of beats may lead to the errors in this estimate. Hence, a detailed quantitative description of this phenomenon is important.

The result of the calculation using the Kubo formula is different from that obtained using Boltzmann transport equation. An additional term in conductivity (see formula (14) and the discussion after this formula) is general for conductivity in magnetic field. It arises due to Landau quantization of electron energy spectrum. However, this term is proportional to the oscillations of the electron mean square velocity which are smaller than the oscillations of the electron relaxation time (or of $`\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)\rho (ϵ)`$) by the same factor $`\mathrm{}\omega _c/2\pi t`$ as the phase shift of beats is. Therefore, this additional term in 3D case is smaller than the main oscillating term by the factor of $`\mathrm{}\omega _c/ϵ_F`$.

The slow oscillations of magnetoresistance can give useful information about compounds under study. A significant feature of the slow oscillations is that their Dingle factor $`R_D`$ is different from the factor $`R_D`$ of the Shubnikov oscillations. The usual Dingle factor includes all temperature-independent mechanisms of smearing of fast quantum oscillations. These are not only microscopical scattering events of electrons but also macroscopic spatial inhomogeneities of the sample. These inhomogeneities lead to macroscopic spatial variations of the electron energy $`ϵ^{}`$ in formula (14) which is equivalent to a local shift of the chemical potential. The total signal is an average over the entire sample and such macroscopic inhomogeneities lead to the damping of magnetic quantum oscillations similar to that caused by temperature. Since the slow oscillations do not depend on $`\mu `$, they are not affected by this type of smearing and the corresponding Dingle temperature $`T_D^{}`$ of slow oscillations is determined by only short-range scatterers. One can therefore estimate relative contributions from macroscopic inhomogeneities and from local defects to the scattering rate by comparing $`T_D`$ and $`T_D^{}`$. This role could be quite essential in organic metals. For example, such a comparison for a sample of $`\beta `$-(BEDT-TTF)2IBr2 gives  $`T_D=(0.8\pm 0.02)`$ K while $`T_D^{}=(0.15\pm 0.02)`$ K, that means that the long-range crystal imperfections are important for damping of fast quantum oscillations. The relaxation of electron momentum affecting transport quantities comes, however, mainly from short-range impurities.

The slow oscillations in formula (25) do not have temperature damping factor. Hence, although the amplitude of the slow oscillations contains the square of the Dingle factor (they are a second-order effect), it can be larger than the amplitude of the fast SdH oscillations at $`TT_D`$. However, our experience disagrees with the statement that the slow oscillations do not manifest any temperature dependence (and, hence, could be seen at room temperature). Actually they do have some temperature damping because the oscillating DoS itself has some temperature dependence. The temperature damping of the DoS oscillations comes from the electron-phonon and electron-electron interactions. In normal 3D metals  the electron-electron (e-e) scattering rate $`1/\tau _{ee}\left(k_BT\right)^2/\mathrm{}\mu `$ while the electron-phonon scattering rate $`1/\tau _{ph}\left(k_BT/\mathrm{}\right)(k_BT/\mathrm{}\omega _D)^2.`$ One can estimate the effect of these scattering processes on the DoS oscillations by introducing the additional damping factor

$$R_{TD}\mathrm{exp}\left[\pi (1/\omega _c\tau _{ee}+1/\omega _c\tau _{ph})\right]$$
(29)
analogous to the usual Dingle factor. This factor enters squared in the amplitude of slow oscillations. The temperature $`T_{SO}`$ at which the slow oscillations become damped by this factor is much higher than the characteristic temperature of the damping of fast quantum oscillations. It is approximately given by $`\pi (1/\omega _c\tau _{ee}(T_{SO})+1/\omega _c\tau _{ph}(T_{SO}))1`$. The above analysis of the temperature dependence of slow oscillations is very approximate. A rigorous calculation must be based on the exact calculation of the electron self-energy due to these two types of interactions. Nevertheless, the above arguments can give qualitative estimates. A more accurate calculation would be useful since the temperature dependence of slow oscillations at high enough temperature may give additional information about the electron-phonon and electron-electron interactions in various compounds where slow oscillations exist. This is important since these interactions in layered organic metals determine the superconducting and the density-wave transitions.

The entanglement with the oscillations of chemical potential contributes an additional temperature-dependent term to the slow oscillations of conductivity. This term can be easily obtained by substituting (B2) into (25). However, this term has additional damping factors $`R_T^2`$ and $`(R_D/R_D^{})^2`$compared to the main slowly oscillating term. Therefore, this correction is as small as the second harmonic of Shubnikov oscillations is, and we can neglect it.

The slow oscillations does not appear in magnetization because there is no suitable entanglement of different oscillating quantities in magnetization. The magnetization being a thermodynamic quantity is completely determined by the electron density of states. However, the density of states does not have slowly oscillating terms. The mixing with the oscillations of the chemical potential, or with those of the Dingle factor and of $`\text{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)`$ does not also lead to slow oscillations of magnetization (see Appendix B).

Now we shall discuss the approximations made during the derivation of formula (25).

The first limitation of the proposed analysis is that the magnetic field is taken to be perpendicular to the conducting layers. A finite tilt angle $`\theta `$ of the magnetic field with respect to the normal to the conducting planes may be approximately taken into account by rescaling the Landau level separation, $`\omega _c\omega _c\mathrm{cos}\theta ,`$ and of the warping of the Fermi surface, $`t(\theta )=t(0)J_0(k_Fd\mathrm{tan}\theta )`$, where $`k_F`$ is the in-plane Fermi momentum. But this is only a semiclassical approximation based on the assumption that the FS remains the same. Actually, the tilting of the magnetic field changes the dispersion relation and a more profound study of the effect of tilting of magnetic field on transport properties is required. The quantum mechanical calculation of the dispersion relation in tilted magnetic field in the first order of the transfer integral gives  $`t(\theta )/t(0)=\mathrm{exp}\left(g^2/4\right)L_n^0\left(g^2/2\right)`$, where $`gd\mathrm{tan}\theta /a_H`$, $`a_H=\sqrt{\mathrm{}c/eB_z}`$ is the magnetic length and $`L_n^0\left(x\right)`$ is Laguerre polynomial. This result is also approximate, but it should work satisfactory at not too great tilt angles. In the limit $`n\mathrm{}`$ the two above results coincide.

More essential errors may come from the so-called incoherent or weakly incoherent electron interlayer transport. This means, that when the interlayer transfer integral becomes comparable to the Dingle temperature, the electron interlayer jumps an electron scattering on impurities should not be considered separately. Their entanglement may result even in qualitatively new phenomena in the quasi-2D magnetotransport . In the present work we consider only the case $`t>T_D`$.

Other errors may come from the approximate expression for self-energy (19). The self-consistent Born approximation at finite $`k_z`$ dispersion works quite well, but other scattering mechanisms (especially for the calculation of the DoS) should be taken into account. An accurate study of this problem may depend on a particular type of the compound in hand. It may lead to some quantitative modifications of formula (25).

The above analysis does not take into account the vertex corrections. In our case (of point-like impurity scattering) this is right because, according to the Ward identity, the vertex $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}(m,E)=\stackrel{}{p}+m\stackrel{}{}_p\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,E)`$. Hence, if the retarded self-energy depends only on energy, the vertex corrections are zero. The fact that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,ϵ)`$ is approximately a function of energy $`ϵ`$ only is a consequence of the short-range (or point-like) impurity potential. More precisely, if one takes a point-like impurity potential and neglects all diagrams with the intersections of the impurity lines in the self-energy, then after averaging over randomly and uniformly distributed impurity positions one obtains $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(m,ϵ)=\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(ϵ)`$. The neglected graphs with the intersections of the impurity lines describe the coherent scattering on two impurities simultaneously. The contribution of such scattering is small at large enough interlayer transfer integral. In the three-dimensional case without magnetic field the vertex corrections produce an additional factor $`(1\mathrm{cos}\alpha )`$ in the integrand for the transport scattering relaxation time where $`\alpha `$ is the scattering angle. But the scattering probability is independent of the scattering angle in the case of point-like impurities and the additive $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha `$ vanishes after the integration over angles. Hence, the vertex corrections vanish.

In derivation of formula (25) only first- and second-order terms in the small damping factors $`R_T`$ and $`R_D`$ were taken into account, assuming the harmonic damping to be strong. This is valid in the most experiments on quasi-2D organic metals where the amplitude of the second harmonic does not usually exceed $`5\%`$ of the first harmonic.

So, in spite of the approximations made in the above analysis, the proposed theoretical description is valid in a large domain of parameters which one has in real experiments on quasi-2D organic metals. For example, above result concerning the slow oscillations and the phase of beats of the SdH oscillations is important for an experimental study of these effects in $`\beta `$-(BEDT-TTF)2IBr2 (see, e.g. ,). The proposed results may be also used for heterostructures with large enough interlayer jumping.

The author thanks M.V. Kartsovnik, W. Biberacher, A.M. Dyugaev and I. Vagner for encouragement and stimulating discussions. The work was supported by the EU ICN contract HPRI-CT-1999-40013 and RFBR No. 00-02-17729a.

## A Transformation of the sums over LLs to the sums over harmonics

To transform the sums over LL number into the harmonic sums we shall apply the Poisson summation formula

$$\underset{n=n_0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}f(n)=\underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_a^{\mathrm{}}e^{2\pi ikn}f(n)𝑑n$$
(A1)
where $`a(n_01;n_0)`$. This formula is valid for arbitrary function $`f(n).`$ The electron velocity is determined from the dispersion relation (1) as

$`v_z(ϵ,n)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ(n,k_z)}{\mathrm{}k_z}}={\displaystyle \frac{2td}{\mathrm{}}}\mathrm{sin}(k_zd)=`$ (A2)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{\mathrm{}}}\sqrt{4t^2\left(ϵ\mathrm{}\omega _c(n+1/2)\right)^2}.`$ (A3)
The sum in (6) now becomes

$`{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\left|v_z(ϵ,n)\right|`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{\mathrm{}}}\sqrt{4t^2\left(ϵ\mathrm{}\omega _c\left(n+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\right)^2}=`$ (A4)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{\mathrm{}}}\mathrm{}\omega _c{\displaystyle \underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑ne^{2\pi ik\left(n\frac{1}{2}\right)}\sqrt{\left({\displaystyle \frac{2t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}n\right)^2}`$ (A5)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{\mathrm{}}}\mathrm{}\omega _c{\displaystyle \underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left(1\right)^k\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ikϵ}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right){\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑xe^{2\pi ikx}\sqrt{\left({\displaystyle \frac{2t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)^2x^2}`$ (A6)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dt}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\left(1\right)^k}{k}}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ikϵ}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)J_1\left({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi kt}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}}\right)`$ (A7)
In this formula for the zeroth harmonic $`k=0`$ one should use the expansion $`J_1(kx)/k=x/2`$.

## B Magnetization

The first harmonic of the oscillating part of magnetization is given by (see , formula 6)

$$\stackrel{~}{M}(B)=\frac{2N_{LL}\epsilon _F}{\pi B}\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{2\pi (\epsilon _F+\stackrel{~}{\mu }(B))}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)J_0\left(\frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)R_TR_SR_D(\epsilon _F).$$
(B1)
where the oscillating part of the chemical potential is (, formula 5)

$$\stackrel{~}{\mu }(B)=\frac{\mathrm{}\omega _c}{\pi (1+n_R(\epsilon _F))}\times \mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{2\pi (\epsilon _F+\stackrel{~}{\mu }(B))}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)J_0\left(\frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)R_TR_SR_D.$$
(B2)
The entanglement of magnetization oscillations with the oscillations of the Dingle factor (12) produces an additional term

$$\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{2\pi \epsilon _F}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)J_0\left(\frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\times \mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{2\pi \epsilon _F}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)J_0\left(\frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)$$

$$=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{4\pi \epsilon _F}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)J_0^2\left(\frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)$$

which give rise to the second harmonic but makes zero contribution to the slow oscillations of magnetization.

The entanglement with the oscillations of the chemical potential (B2) produces the term

$$\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{2\pi (\epsilon _F+\stackrel{~}{\mu }(B))}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{2\pi \epsilon _F}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)$$

$$=\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{2\pi \epsilon _F}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\left[\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{2\pi \stackrel{~}{\mu }(B)}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)1\right]+\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{2\pi \epsilon _F}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{2\pi \epsilon _F}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)J_0\left(\frac{4\pi t}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)\frac{2R_TR_D}{1+n_R}$$

which also contribute only to the second harmonics (or higher harmonics) but not to slow oscillations.


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# 1/𝑓 noise in variable range hopping conduction.

## I Introduction

Low frequency $`1/f`$ noise was found in many conducting materials with the wide variety of transport mechanisms. Substantial attention was devoted to $`1/f`$ noise in the hopping conduction. One of the reasons is that $`1/f`$ noise limits performance of important devices working in the hopping regime, for example, thermistors for X-ray detection and other astrophysical applications. Understanding of the nature of $`1/f`$ noise can also shed light on the role of electron-electron interactions in the hopping transport.

In a lightly doped semiconductor at low temperatures electrons are localized on donors and the conductivity is due to hopping between donors. (For concreteness we talk about $`n`$-type moderately compensated semiconductor with concentration of donors $`N_D`$.) There are two well known regimes of hopping transport. At relatively high temperatures electrons use almost all the donors for hopping. This regime is called the nearest neighbor hopping (NNH). In this case, the energy scatter of donors due to random potentials of charged donors and acceptors plays only a secondary role, leading to a fixed activation energy of conductivity. At low enough temperatures activation required for the use of the majority of donors becomes very costly and only donors within a narrow band of energies around the Fermi level participate in the conductivity. With decreasing temperature the width of this band shrinks and hops become longer. This explains the name ”variable range hopping” (VRH) of the regime.

Most of recent experiments deal with VRH and focus on temperature dependence of $`1/f`$ noise . Results seem to be quite controversial. For example, Lee found that in silicon $`1/f`$ noise amplitude decreases when temperature goes down, while McCammon observed exponential increase of $`1/f`$ noise with the decreasing temperature.

On the other hand, the original theory of $`1/f`$ noise in the hopping transport deals only with NNH and only with the case of relatively high temperatures when NNH conductivity is temperature independent. This theory is based on the idea of traps provided by rare isolated donors. Such a donor traps an electron from donors of the transport paths (conducting media) and releases it back, both with characteristic times, which are much larger than times of hops determining VRH conductivity. The resulting modulation of number of ”conducting” carriers at low frequency $`\omega `$ leads to the spectral density of current noise $`I_\omega ^2`$ with a behavior close to $`1/\omega `$ (or $`1/f`$). This idea is similar to the McWorter’s explanation of $`1/f`$ noise in MOSFETs by electron exchange between two-dimensional electron gas and traps in the oxide, which have an extremely wide spectrum of times of tunneling to the interface. The difference is that in the MOSFET case traps are separated from the conducting two-dimensional gas by the interface, while in the case of the hopping transport traps are located inside pores scattered in the body of the conducting media of donors. This paper generalizes the idea of Refs. to the VRH conductivity (Sec. II) and to the temperature dependent NNH (Sec. III). We again identify those donors, which can work as traps with extremely wide spectrum of very large relaxation times. Then we calculate the probability of a trap, which now becomes an exponentially decreasing function of temperature. Integrating contributions of all traps to the noise we arrive at the conclusion that in the VRH case the spectral density of current noise $`I_\omega ^2`$ approximately obeys the Hooge law, Eq. (8), with the coefficient $`\alpha `$, which is given by Eq. (9) and exponentially decreases with temperature. On the other hand, in the case of NNH conductivity, which grows exponentially with temperature with a constant activation energy, the Hooge’s $`\alpha `$ is almost temperature independent. Thus, exponential temperature dependence of conductivity does not automatically lead to exponential dependence of $`1/f`$ noise.

Sec. IV is devoted to the discussion of the relationship between of spectral densities of fluctuations of the current and the electron concentration, which is used in Sec.II and Sec. III to calculate the noise spectral density. In Sec. V. we compare our theory with two previously published theoretical works on $`1/f`$ noise in VRH and with available experiments. We also make a comment about applicability of our theory to MOSFETs.

## II Variable range hopping

Due to the Coulomb interaction of localized electrons, the density of states of donor states, $`g(\epsilon )`$, of a three-dimensional lightly doped semiconductor is known to have the Coulomb gap near the Fermi level,

$$g(\epsilon )=(3/\pi )\kappa ^3e^6\epsilon ^2.$$
(1)
Here $`\epsilon `$ is the energy of a localized electron on a donor calculated from the Fermi level, $`\kappa `$ is the dielectric constant of the semiconductor and $`e`$ is the proton charge. At low temperatures VRH conductivity $`\sigma (T)`$ obeys the Efros-Shklovskii (ES) law

$$\sigma (T)=\sigma _0\mathrm{exp}[(T_0/T)^{1/2}],$$
(2)
where $`T_0=Ce^2/k_B\kappa a`$, $`a`$ is the localization length (Bohr radius) of an electron on a donor, and $`C2.7`$.

The ES conductivity is determined only by donors with energies in the band $`\delta =k_B(T_0T)^{1/2}`$ around the Fermi level ($`\delta `$-band). Similarly to Ref. we are interested in a trap, i. e. in such a rare donor of the same band $`\delta `$, which anomalously slowly exchanges an electron with the majority of donors of this conducting band. The rate of electron hops between two donors $`i`$ and $`j`$ is

$$\nu _{ij}=\nu _0\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{2r_{ij}}{a}\frac{\epsilon _{ij}}{k_BT}\right),$$
(3)
where $`\epsilon _i`$ is the energy level of the donor $`i`$, $`\epsilon _{ij}=(|\epsilon _i|+|\epsilon _j|+|\epsilon _i\epsilon _j|)/2`$. We want to find a trap with relaxation time larger than $`\nu ^1`$, where $`\nu `$ is so small that $`\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0/\nu )(T_0/T)^{1/2}`$. Such a trap is an isolated donor, for which all rates of transitions to the neighboring donors of the band of energies $`\delta `$ are smaller than $`\nu `$. Let us consider a donor $`i`$ located in the center of a sphere of radius $`R(\nu )=(a/2)\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0/\nu )`$, which contains no other donors $`j`$ within $`\delta `$-band. Then there are no direct hops from our donor to the conducting $`\delta `$-band of donors. But this is not enough to have a trap we are looking for, because an electron can still escape from donor $`i`$ to the conducting $`\delta `$-band through an intermediate donor $`j`$, which has energy $`\epsilon _j`$ much larger than $`\delta `$, but is located closer to $`i`$, at the distance $`r_{ij}<R(\nu )`$. In order to preserve the trap all such ”dangerous” intermediate donors $`j`$ near donor $`i`$ should be eliminated or, in other words, all the remaining ones should satisfy inequality

$$\frac{\epsilon _{ij}}{k_BT}>\mathrm{ln}\frac{\nu _0}{\nu }.$$
(4)
This inequality means that the energy $`\epsilon _j`$ should be away from the energy band of the width $`\mathrm{\Delta }=k_BT\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0/\nu )\delta `$ around the Fermi level ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-band). The concentration of donors in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-band is of the order of $`N(\mathrm{\Delta })g(\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{\Delta }=(\kappa \mathrm{\Delta }/e^2)^3`$. Therefore, the average number of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-band donors in the sphere of radius $`R(\nu )`$ equals $`M=(4\pi /3)R^3(\nu )N(\mathrm{\Delta })`$. Probability, $`W(\nu )`$, to find a sphere with radius $`R(\nu )`$ empty from such donors has a form $`\mathrm{exp}(M)`$ or

$$W(\nu )=\mathrm{exp}\left(B(T/T_0)^3\mathrm{ln}^6\frac{\nu _0}{\nu }\right),$$
(5)
where $`B`$ is a numerical factor. For a donor with the relaxation rate $`\nu `$ equal the typical hopping frequency of conducting electrons, $`\nu _c\nu _0\mathrm{exp}[(T_0/T)^{1/2}]`$, we get $`W(\nu )1`$, confirming that this is a typical donor. Traps have $`\nu \nu _c`$ and, therefore, exponentially small probabilities. To find the coefficient $`B`$ we calculated probability of a pore in four dimensional space of three coordinates and energy. This calculation gives $`B0.3`$. Note that probability $`W(\nu )`$ decreases with increasing temperature because at high temperatures the volume of the four dimensional pore from which one has to eliminate donors becomes larger.

The spectral density of fluctuations of the concentration of ”conducting” electrons, $`n_\omega ^2`$, can be evaluated by integration over all traps

$$n_\omega ^2=\frac{N(\delta )}{V}_0^{\nu _c}\frac{dW}{d\nu }\frac{4\nu }{\omega ^2+\nu ^2}𝑑\nu .$$
(6)
Here $`N(\delta )`$ is the concentration of donors in the $`\delta `$-band around the Fermi level and $`V`$ is the sample volume.

According to the standard approximation is that relative fluctuations of the concentration of conducting electrons lead to fluctuations of conductivity, i.e.

$$\frac{I_\omega ^2}{I^2}\frac{n_\omega ^2}{N^2(\delta )}.$$
(7)
Here $`I_\omega ^2`$ is the spectral density of current fluctuations and $`I`$ is the average current through the sample. We will discuss justification of Eq. (7) in Sec. IV. Using Eq. (6) we can now estimate $`I_\omega ^2/I^2`$. Let us start from the most interesting case when the exponential factor $`dW/d\nu `$ in the integrand of Eq. (6) is a weaker function of $`\nu `$, than $`\nu /(\omega ^2+\nu ^2)`$ and the integral is determined by $`\nu \omega `$. Then one can take exponential term of Eq. (6) out of the integral at the frequency $`\nu =\omega `$. This leads to the Hooge law

$$\frac{I_\omega ^2}{I^2}=\frac{\alpha (\omega ,T)}{\omega N_DV},$$
(8)
where $`N_DV`$ is the total number of donors and $`\alpha `$ is the Hooge’s coefficient. We obtain

$$\alpha (\omega ,T)\mathrm{exp}[B(T/T_0)^3\mathrm{ln}^6\frac{\nu _0}{\omega }].$$
(9)
Here as everywhere below we are concentrated on exponential temperature dependence of noise and are not trying to calculate prefactor. Using Eq. (12) one can express $`\alpha (\omega ,T)`$ through $`\sigma (T)`$:

$$\mathrm{ln}\alpha (\omega ,T)=B\left(\frac{\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0/\omega )}{\mathrm{ln}(\sigma _0/\sigma )}\right)^6.$$
(10)
This simple relationship can be convenient for a direct experimental verification.

The above derivation of $`\alpha (\omega ,T)`$ is justified when the dependence of $`\alpha `$ on $`\omega `$ is weaker than $`1/\omega `$, i. e. when $`\omega \nu _0\mathrm{exp}[(T_0/T)^{3/5}]`$. On the other hand, our approach of traps is good only for frequencies $`\omega `$ smaller than the frequency of transport hops $`\nu _c`$, i. e. for $`\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0/\omega )(T_0/T)^{1/2}`$. Thus, the Hooge law is valid in the range of frequencies

$$\mathrm{exp}[(T_0/T)^{1/2}]\omega /\nu _0\mathrm{exp}[(T_0/T)^{3/5}].$$
(11)
In spite of close powers in the exponents of lower and upper limit this range can be quite broad. For example, even at a moderate $`(T_0/T)^{1/2}=10`$ this range covers 2.5 decades, while at the very large $`(T_0/T)^{1/2}=20`$ it reaches 7 decades.

One can approximately write $`I_\omega ^2/I^21/\omega ^\gamma `$, where $`\gamma =16B(T/T_0)^3\mathrm{ln}^5(\nu _0/\omega )`$. Thus, according to this theory $`\gamma <1`$. In the range (11), the index $`\gamma `$ is close to unity and approaches 1/2 at the low frequency limit of applicability of Eq. (8).

For a fixed $`\omega `$ in the frequency range ((11)), Eq. (9) contains the main result of this paper - an exponential growth of the noise power with the decreasing temperature. The physics of this dependence is clear: the lower the temperature, the smaller is the width of the band of energies $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where one has to eliminate ’dangerous” donors in order to get a trap for a given frequency, the smaller is the number of donors to be eliminated, the larger is the probability to find such a trap.

According to Eqs. (7) and (6) at smaller frequencies $`\omega \nu _{min}=\nu _0\mathrm{exp}[(T_0/T)^{3/5}]`$, the spectral density of noise becomes substantially weaker than $`1/f`$ and eventually saturates at the level $`\mathrm{exp}[(T_0/T)^{3/5}]`$. To calculate behavior of $`1/f`$ noise in all range $`\omega <\nu _c`$ more accurately one should similarly to add the contribution of traps made of large finite clusters of donors and calculate the integral of Eq. (6) numerically.

We derived Eq. (9) for a semiconductor in which the concentration $`N_D`$ is substantially smaller than the critical concentration of the metal-insulator transition, $`N_{MI}`$. In this case, we can use Eq. (1) for the density of states $`g(\epsilon )`$. In experiments VRH is typically measured at $`0.25N_{MI}N_DN_{MI}`$ because of a huge resistance of lighter doped samples. We believe that Eqs. (8) and (9) still work in the range $`0.25N_{MI}N_D0.5N_{MI}`$.

We do not exactly know how to generalize Eq. (9) for the critical vicinity of the metal-insulator transition, where $`N_{MI}N_DN_D`$. An additional source of the traps may be related to the spacial fluctuations of diverging at the transition localization length $`\xi `$. Anomalously small $`\xi `$ in a vicinity of some donor can create a trap. A simple conjecture is that Eqs. (9) and (10) remain valid at $`N_{MI}N_DN_D`$ with the same $`T_0=2.7e^2/k_B\kappa \xi `$ as in the ES law near the transition. Anyway an experimental study of this range of concentration can shed some light on the metal-insulator transition.

Until now we have been dealing with VRH conductivity in a doped crystalline moderately compensated semiconductor, where conductivity obeys Eq. (12). In systems with a weaker role of the electron-electron interaction such as amorphous semiconductors or two-dimensional systems screened by a parallel metallic gate, VRH can take place in the larger band of energies than the width of the Coulomb gap and, therefore, one can observe Mott law

$$\sigma (T)=\sigma _0\mathrm{exp}[(T_d/T)^{1/(d+1)}],$$
(12)
where $`d=2,3`$ is the dimensionality of the system, $`T_d=\beta _d/(ga^d)`$, $`g`$ is the bare (unperturbed by the Coulomb interaction) $`d`$-dimensional density of states in the vicinity of the Fermi level and $`\beta _d`$ are numerical constants. Repeating the derivation of Eq. (9) we get the Hooge law with

$$\alpha (\omega ,T)\mathrm{exp}[B_d(T/T_d)\mathrm{ln}^{d+1}(\nu _0/\omega )],$$
(13)
or

$$\mathrm{ln}\alpha (\omega ,T)=B_d\left(\frac{\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0/\omega )}{\mathrm{ln}(\sigma _0/\sigma )}\right)^{d+1},$$
(14)
where $`B_d`$ are numerical coefficients. The physics of the origin of the exponential temperature dependence is exactly the same as above: the higher the temperature, the more difficult is to find a trap for a given small frequency $`\nu `$.

## III Temperature dependent nearest neighbor hopping

Eqs. (9) is valid when temperature is so small that the energy width $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of the band, where all ”dangerous” donors are eliminated, is smaller than the width of the donor band, $`A=e^2N_D^{1/3}/\kappa `$, i. e. at $`k_BT\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0/\nu )e^2N_D^{1/3}/\kappa `$. In the opposite case, $`\mathrm{\Delta }A`$, or

$$TT_1=\frac{e^2N_D^{1/3}}{k_B\kappa \mathrm{ln}(\nu _0/\nu )},$$
(15)
the concentration of donors in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-band

$$N(\mathrm{\Delta })=_\mathrm{\Delta }^\mathrm{\Delta }g(\epsilon )𝑑\epsilon =N_D[1(A/\mathrm{\Delta })^3]$$
(16)
is close to $`N_D`$ and only weakly depends on $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Here we used the fact that as shown in Chapter 3 of Ref. the large energy tails of the density of states of the classical donor band behave as $`g(\epsilon )N_DA^3/|\epsilon |^4`$ at $`|\epsilon |A`$. Now we can use Eq. (6) with probability $`W(\nu )=\mathrm{exp}[(\pi /6)N(\mathrm{\Delta })a^3\mathrm{ln}^3(\nu _0/\nu )]`$ which can be rewritten as

$$W(\nu )=\mathrm{exp}[(\pi /6)N_Da^3\mathrm{ln}^3(\nu _0/\nu )]\mathrm{exp}(T_c/T)^3.$$
(17)
Here $`T_ce^2aN_D^{2/3}/k_B\kappa `$ is the critical temperature of the transition from NNH to VRH. In the range of frequencies

$$\mathrm{exp}[(T_0/T)^{1/2}]\omega /\nu _0\mathrm{exp}[(N_Da^3)^{1/2}],$$
(18)
where $`dW/d\nu `$ is weaker function of $`\nu `$ than $`4\nu /(\omega ^2+\nu ^2)`$. we again obtain the Hooge law with

$$\alpha (\omega ,T)=\mathrm{exp}[(\pi /6)N_Da^3\mathrm{ln}^3(\nu _0/\omega )]\mathrm{exp}(T_c/T)^3.$$
(19)
Eq. (19) is valid both for NNH (at $`T>T_c`$) and for VRH (at $`T_1<T<T_c`$). First exponential factor of Eq. (19) originates from the probability of a pore free of all donors. This factor is temperature independent and coincides with the value of $`\alpha `$ obtained for the high temperature limit of NNH . Second, temperature dependent exponential factor of the right hand side of Eq. (19) provides only a relatively small correction to $`\mathrm{ln}\alpha (\omega ,T)`$, which grows as $`1/T^3`$ with the decreasing temperature. In NNH range, when $`TT_c`$, the relative temperature dependent correction to $`\alpha (\omega ,T)`$ is much smaller than unity. At the transition point from NNH to VRH, i. e. at $`TT_c`$, this correction reaches 100%. At $`TT_c`$ it becomes exponentially large and provides the smooth crossover to Eq. (9), when $`T`$ approaches $`T_1=e^2N_D^{1/3}/k_B\kappa \mathrm{ln}(\nu _0/\nu )`$. However, as we already mentioned above, because of huge resistances an experimental observation of VRH is not possible, when $`N_Da^31`$. Therefore, inequality (18) is very difficult to realize and the use of Eq. (19) for VRH regime is limited. But Eq. (19) is definitely important for the temperature dependence of noise of NNH, which takes place at $`N_Da^31`$.

To conclude this section we would like to repeat that for NNH temperature dependence of $`\alpha (\omega ,T)`$ is negligible in all range of temperatures $`ATT_c`$, where conductivity itself grows with decreasing temperature with activation energy of the order of $`A`$.

## IV Relationship between fluctuations of the current and of the concentration of conducting electrons

Now we would like to return to Eq. (7), which establishes relation between fluctuations of concentration of conducting electrons (which are not trapped) $`n`$ and fluctuations of current and discuss its validity. In MOSFETs, where most of electrons are free, fluctuations of the concentration of free electrons obviously lead to proportional fluctuations of the conductivity and at a fixed electric field $`I_\omega ^2/I^2=n_\omega ^2/n^2`$.

For NNH such proportionality between fluctuations of $`I`$ and $`n`$ is obvious for strongly compensated samples, where electrons play the role of carriers, or for a weakly compensated semiconductor, where the role of carriers is played by a small concentration of holes (empty donors). However, even in this case there could be such an intermediate compensation ratio $`K=N_A/N_D`$, where the coefficient in linear proportionality between fluctuations of $`I`$ and $`n`$ vanishes. (Here $`N_A`$ is the concentration of acceptors). In VRH conductivity connection between fluctuations of $`I`$ and $`n`$ is even less trivial.

Let us consider relation of $`I`$ and $`n`$ for a simpler example when concentration, $`n`$, of electrons in a two-dimensional hopping system is varied due to a change of the gate voltage. Any variation of $`n`$ leads to a shift of the Fermi level. The Coulomb gap, however, moves together with the Fermi level and, in the first approximation, it remains unchanged at small energies $`\delta `$, which are important for VRH. It is not obvious then whether Eq. (7) is valid.

In the first subsection of this section we show that in the generic case of asymmetric with respect of Fermi level bare (disorder related) density of states one can justify Eq. (7), because in this case there is a nonzero derivative $`d\sigma /dn`$ for a sample of infinite size. In the second subsection we introduce more general mechanism of fluctuation of conductivity, which exists even in the case when $`d\sigma /dn=0`$ for infinite sample, but still can be evaluated in the way it was done in Secs. II and III.

### A Asymmetry of the density of states

In a doped $`n`$-type semiconductor at a generic compensation ratio $`K`$ the density of states at large $`\epsilon `$ is asymmetric with respect to the Fermi level (see plots in Chapter 14 of Ref. ). In spite of tendency of Coulomb gap to be symmetric, the density of states, $`g(\epsilon )`$, at $`\epsilon \delta `$, is sensitive to behavior of the density of states at larger energies. This happens because the Coulomb gap should crossover in its ”shoulders” to the bare density of states of the classical impurity band. Using the self-consistent equation for the one-electron density of states derived by Efros one can show that the absolute value of nonuniversal (depending on position of Fermi level) correction to the density states at small $`\epsilon `$ is proportional to $`\kappa ^3\epsilon ^3/e^6A`$, where $`Ae^2N_D^{1/3}/\kappa `$ is the energy width of the classical donor band. In other words, the relative asymmetric correction to Eq. (1) at $`\epsilon \delta `$ is proportional to $`\delta /A`$.

Our final goal is to evaluate fluctuations of the hopping conductivity. In VRH regime the conductivity fluctuates because $`g(\delta )`$ fluctuates following the Fermi level. It is easy to show that relative fluctuations of the conductivity are larger than fluctuations of $`g(\delta )`$ by $`(T_0/T)^{1/2}T_0/\delta `$. Thus, as in a free electron gas, the fluctuations of conductivity are proportional to fluctuations of the concentration of conducting electrons with the temperature independent coefficient of proportionality $`(\delta /A)(T_0/\delta )=T_0/A`$.

Now we can return to slow traps immersed in the conducting media, which work similarly to a gate. While the number of trapped electrons is slowly changing with time, the conducting media arrives at the quasi-equilibrium at much shorter time scale and develops the quasi-equilibrium Fermi level tracking fluctuations of the electron concentration. In turn, the position of the quasi-Fermi level affects the density of states relevant to the conductivity and, therefore, the hopping conductivity itself.

Without Coulomb interactions fluctuations of the concentration are uniform over the conducting media. Coulomb interactions makes these fluctuations localized, because of screening of trapped electrons. When an electron is trapped, a hole remaining in the conducting media is localized close to the trap. In other words, fluctuations of the concentration of conducting electrons do not propagate to the bulk of the conducting media. In this sense, traps are equivalent to small gates separated from each other by large distances. They locally perturb the concentration of conducting electrons. This perturbation, of course, changes conductivity only near traps. Now we have to discuss these changes and the way how they affect the total current through the sample.

We start from an estimate of the screening radius of a spherical trap with radius $`R=(a/2)\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0/\nu )`$. In other words, we want to find the radius of the concentric sphere, where the hole left behind by trapped electron is localized. In the Coulomb gap, the density of states at the Fermi level is very small at small temperatures. One can find substituting $`k_BT`$ for $`\epsilon `$ into Eq. (1) so that linear screening Debye radius $`R_s`$ which describes screening of very small charge is very large, $`R_sa(T_0/T)`$. On the other hand, one electron charge $`e`$ of the trap is large enough to produce additional nonlinear screening. Nonlinear screening radius $`R_N`$ can be found from the condition that potential of trapped electron $`e/\kappa R`$ can attract a positive charge to one of donors inside the sphere with radius $`R_N`$. This condition can be written as

$$\frac{4\pi }{3}(r_N^3R^3)_0^{e/\kappa R}2g(\epsilon )𝑑\epsilon 1,$$
(20)
This gives $`R_NRR`$. To understand changes of the macroscopic conductivity we should compare $`R_NR`$ with the characteristic distance $`L`$ at which VRH conductivity self averages, or in other words, becomes uniform. This is the characteristic period of the critical subnetwork (percolation infinite cluster) of the Miller-Abrahams resistor network, which carries all the current. It is known to be of the order of $`L=(a/2)(T_0/T)^{(1+\nu _3)/2}a(T_0/T)^{0.95}`$. (Here we used the fact that exponent of the correlation length of the percolation theory, $`\nu _3=0.91`$.) The length $`L`$ is of course much larger than the characteristic length of a hop $`r_h=(a/2)(T_0/T)^{1/2}`$. It is interesting that $`L`$ is only somewhat smaller than the linear screening radius $`R_s`$.

Below we consider two different cases, $`R>L,R_s`$ and $`R<L,R_s`$. In the first case, $`R_N>R_s`$ and, therefore, screening is linear ( $`R_N`$ plays no role). The hole is not bound to a particular donor but freely travels in the spherical layer (atmosphere) between $`R`$ and $`R+R_s`$. In this case, one can use macroscopic approach for the role of traps, namely one can say that the concentration of electrons (and the local VRH conductivity) slightly in varies in spherical atmospheres around all traps. It is known that in a slightly inhomogeneous media in the first approximation the sample conductivity is equal to the average value of the local conductivity. Therefore, the change of the sample conductivity reflects fluctuations of the total number of conducting electrons and Eq. (7) is valid.

However, the case $`R>L,R_s`$ can be realized only at very low frequencies $`\nu `$ and we have to consider the second case, $`R<L,R_s`$. In this case, the simple macroscopic approach based on fluctuations of concentration does not work, because traps perturb the critical network locally, at the distances much smaller than the scale of self-averaging of the VRH conductivity. We show below that for $`R<L,R_s`$ $`1/f`$ noise exists even for the perfect symmetry of the density of states with respect of the Fermi level.

### B Effect of the trap potentials

In the case $`R<L,R_s`$ nonlinear screening is important because $`R_N<R_s`$. Therefore, the hole is bound to the trapped electron and is localized on a particular donor. In other words, electron travels forth and back between this donor and the trap creating the dipole potential $`\varphi (R,t)`$, which modulates conductances $`G_{ij}`$ of neighboring resistors of the Miller-Abrahams resistor network. In order to calculate the effect of this potential let us devide the sample in cubic blocks with linear size $`L`$ each and consider for simplicity such frequencies $`\nu `$, when $`R<L`$, but is still comparable to $`L`$, say $`RL/5`$. Only very small fraction of these cubes of the order of $`(dW/d\nu )\nu `$ has one trap inside. When an electron is captured or released, the dipole potential $`\varphi (R,t)`$ changes energy of critical resistors which derermine conductance of two halfs of the block on both sides of the trap by energy $`e\varphi (R,t)=e^2/\kappa Rk_BT`$. Positive and negative potentials of the dipole applied to two different halfs of the cube, produce different effects because two halfs have different random conductivities (conductivity self averages only at a distance larger than $`L`$). As a result the conductance of such cube changes by 100%. Thus, due to the trapping and detrapping of an electron the conductance of the cube with the trap inside fluctuates roughly speaking by factor two. Macrosopic conductivity then fluctuates according to Eqs. (8) and (9).

## V Comparison with other theoretical models and experiment

Let us start from two theoretical papers, which aim at the theory of $`1/f`$ noise in the VRH conduction. Kozub suggested seemingly different mechanism related to pairs of donors slowly exchanging electron with each other and modulating transport on current paths by their potential. To produce effect at a very small frequency, two donors should be far from each other. But they also should not be ”shortened” by a chain of other donors providing faster exchange between them. In other words, they should be isolated from the conducting media. One could think that each of two donor should have a pore similar to ones discussed in our paper around it. In this case, for a given frequency a pore for a ”modulator” pair would have much smaller probability than spherical traps we study and ”modulators” would produce a negligible noise on the background of the noise created by traps.

Actually, a pair is not ”shortened” even if only one of its donors has a spherical pore around it or, in other words, this donor is exactly a trap we study above. The second donor is the donor of the $`\delta `$-band closest to the pore. So one can say that we presented here a quantitative development of the Kozub’s qualitative idea. Indeed, the language of the second half of Sec. IV is very close to that of Ref. .

In another paper, Shtengel and Yu apparently deal with the same mechanism as discussed in our paper. They did not study analytical asymptotic dependencies, but evaluated expression for $`I_\omega ^2/I^2`$ numerically and obtained results dramatically different from ours. They found stronger than $`1/f`$ growth of $`I_\omega ^2/I^2`$ at small frequencies and a weak growth of the noise with temperature. I have no explanation for their numerical results.

Let us now compare our predictions with experiments on crystalline semiconductors concentrating mainly on the temperature dependence. In the range of VRH exponential growth of $`1/f`$ noise with decreasing temperature following from Eq. (9) agrees qualitatively with $`1/f`$ noise measurements for implantation doped silicon samples, but disagrees with results on bulk silicon crystals. On the other hand, in agreement with Eq. (19), $`1/f`$ noise is almost temperature independent for NNH in germanium. $`1/f`$ noise in the wide range of temperatures including the transition between VRH and NNH was also studied in two-dimensional n-GaAs channels. In agreement with our theory it was observed that $`I_\omega ^2/I^2`$ sharply decreases with increasing temperature in VRH range, while in NNH range the temperature dependence becomes weak.

Frequency dependencies are more problematic for the theory, because deviations in the direction of smaller power or saturation at small frequencies were not seen in experimental works. This can be explained for samples with very large resistances. When $`(T_0/T)^{1/2}`$ is very large the frequency of saturation can become too small to be measured. Indeed, at $`\nu _0=10^{12}`$Hz and $`(T_0/T)^{1/2}=20`$, we find that $`\nu _c=2.510^3`$Hz and $`\nu _{min}=2.510^4`$Hz. On the other hand, the absence of a tendency to saturation in moderately resistive samples with $`(T_0/T)^{1/2}10`$ may signal that the actual mechanism of $`1/f`$ noise is different from the one considered here. Indeed, there are many different pseudoground states separated by large potential barriers from each other in the Coulomb glass formed by a frozen distribution of interacting electrons on random donors. Different pseudoground states (valleys) can have different conductivities and random walk of the system through a sequence of these states may lead to $`1/f`$ noise. Logically it is possible that this noise can be larger than the one we estimated, but nobody was able to evaluate it.

Until now we have dealt with the hopping transport, where both roles of conducting media and traps are played by localized states of impurities. There are also systems where current is carried by free electrons, while localized states play the role of traps only. The best example of such a system is a MOSFET, where a free two-dimensional gas exchanges electrons with localized states (traps) of the oxide. McWorter’s theory assumes that density of states of traps is so small that any localized state of the oxide, which is close to the interface and close in energy to the Fermi level plays the role of the trap. These traps are assumed to be uniformly distributed with respect to the distance from the interface and, thus, lead to $`1/f`$ noise.

McWorter’s theory neglects the possibility that near a trap, which exchanges electrons with the conducting channel, other localized states can be located. They can provide alternative hopping paths with exponentially smaller exchange time and ”shunt” the trap. However, for small enough frequencies and a large enough density of localized states in oxide these paths always exist. Then most effective traps consist of a localized state surrounded by a spherical pore, which touches the interface of the channel. As in the case of VRH, all localized states within energy band $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ should be excluded from the pore, while localized states with higher energies can stay there. Therefore, one can say that the pore is arranged in the four-dimensional coordinate-energy space.

The theory of this paper can be directly used to calculate the probability of such traps and therefore the frequency dependence of spectral density of noise. We assume that in the gap of the oxide the bare density of states, $`g`$ is constant. The Coulomb interaction forms the Coulomb gap of the width $`E_{CG}e^3g^{1/2}/\kappa ^{3/2}`$ in the vicinity of the Fermi level. One has to compare the energy ”width” of the trap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`E_{CG}`$. If $`\mathrm{\Delta }<E_{CG}`$ one can use Eq. (9) On the other hand, when $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{CG}`$ Eq. (9) crosses over to Eq. (13).

In conclusion, this paper explores the role of isolated donors as traps which modulate the concentration of conducting electrons and create noise of the hopping conductivity. It is shown that in the wide range of frequencies traps lead to approximately $`1/f`$ behavior of noise, with the crossover to saturation at extremely small frequencies. In the nearest neighbor hopping range, in spite of the activation temperature dependency of the conductivity, the relative intensity of $`1/f`$ noise is almost temperature independent (see Eqs. (8) and (19)). In the variable range hopping regime the intensity of $`1/f`$ noise grows exponentially with the decreasing temperature according to Eqs. (8) and (9).

I am grateful to Yu. M. Galperin, V. I. Kozub and M. Weissman for the critical comments on original version of this paper, which led to understanding of the role of the trap potential mechanism of the noise (Sec. IV). I appreciate useful discussions with A. L. Efros, H-W. Jiang, Sh. M. Kogan, D. McCammon, Z. Ovadyahu, A. K. Savchenko and I. S. Shlimak.

This work was supported by the NSF grant DMR-9985785.