title: Experimental observation of glassy dynamics driven by gas adsorption on porous silicon.
abstract: We report on electrical resistance measurements of mesoporous silicon samples at room temperature, in the presence of various dosages of ammonia, showing very slow non-exponential responses of the system to any variation of ammonia pressure. Resistance always relaxes according to a stretched exponential law, independently of the sign of the variation. Moreover, the system remembers its own history, and memory effects can be accounted for in a very simple way in the framework of the same relaxation law. A possible extrinsic scenario based on rearrangement of trapped charges is proposed and discussed. These findings suggest that mesoporous silicon in the presence of polar molecules may be regarded as a suitable system for the study of glassy dynamics by means of electrical measurements at RT.
authors.affiliation: Electromagnetic Division, INRIM, Strada delle Cacce 91, I-10135 Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Borini