Phys.org  July 24, 2023 The significant discrepancy observed between the predicted and experimental switching fields in correlated insulators under a DC electric field far-from-equilibrium necessitates a reevaluation of current microscopic understanding. An international team of researchers (USA – SUNY Buffalo, France, South Korea) has shown that an electron avalanche can occur in the bulk limit of such insulators at arbitrarily small electric field by introducing a generic model of electrons coupled to an inelastic medium of phonons. The quantum avalanche arose because of the generation of a ladder of in-gap states, created by a multi-phonon emission process. Hot-phonons in the […]