Electron-phonon decoupling in two dimensions

In order to observe many-body localisation in electronic systems, decoupling from the lattice phonons is required, which is possible only in out-of-equilibrium systems. We show that such an electron-phonon decoupling may happen in suspended films and it manifests itself via a bistability in the electron temperature. By studying the electron-phonon cooling rate in disordered, suspended films with two-dimensional phonons, we derive the conditions needed for such a bistability, which can be observed experimentally through hysteretic jumps of several orders of magnitude in the nonlinear current-voltage characteristics. We demonstrate that such a regime is achievable in systems with an Arrhenius form of the equilibrium conductivity, while practically unreachable in materials with Mott or Efros–Shklovskii hopping.