Mott insulator to metal transitions under electric field are currently the subject of numerous fundamental and applied studies. This puzzling effect, which involves non-trivial out-of-equilibrium effects in correlated systems, is indeed at play in the operation of a new class of electronic memories, the Mott memories. However the combined electronic and thermal effects are difficult to disentangle in Mott insulators undergoing such transitions. We report here a comparison between the properties under electric field of a canonical Mott insulator and a model built on a realistic 2D resistor network able to capture both thermal effects and electronic transitions. This comparison made specifically on the family of narrow gap Mott insulators AM4Q8, (A = Ga or Ge; M=V, Nb or Ta, and Q = S or Se) unambiguously establishes that the resistive transition experimentally observed under electric field arises from a purely electronic mechanism.
@article{arxiv.1407.2038,
title = {Non thermal and purely electronic resistive transition in narrow gap Mott insulators},
author = {P. Stoliar and M. Rozenberg and E. Janod and B. Corraze and J. Tranchant and L. Cario},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1407.2038},
year = {2014}
}