Hot carriers generation and resistive switching induced by electric and light pulses in the Mott insulator GaTa4Se8 (Conference Presentation)

Mott insulators are a class of strongly correlated materials with emergent properties important for modern electronics applications. The key property for application is the Electric Mott insulator to metal Transitions (EMT) whose proposed mechanism is related to the creation of hot electrons by electric field triggering an electronic avalanche after a time delay. This model suggests that the direct creation of hot carriers thanks to a laser pulse should drastically affect the EMT. We have tested this idea by performing pump-pump-probe experiments on single crystals of the Mott insulator GaTa4Se8, whereby electric and laser pulses simultaneously excite the crystal while electric probe monitors its conductivity. Our results show that the concomitant application of femtosecond laser pulse reduced the time delay of EMT by a factor up to. Measurements performed with different laser wavelengths and fluences support moreover that the EMT is driven by a hot carriers generation mechanism.