Detection of the decay of an acoustic soliton arising during pulsed breakdown of a glassy semiconductor film

The results of an experiment demonstrating the appearance of a soliton under certain conditions of pulsed breakdown of a glassy semiconductor film in a magnetic field are reported. The wave is excited by a current filament moving at a velocity close to the speed of sound between two parallel electrodes in an external magnetic field. To distinguish the direction of motion of the acoustic wave and that of the current filament along the substrate, electrodes with a bend that changes the direction of motion of the filament are deposited. Two “frozen” structural-excitation fronts, diverging at an angle to one another and attesting to the decay of the soliton at the moment the current filament vanishes, are observed at the location of the bend in the electrodes. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 70, No. 2, 70–72 (25 July 1999)