  Crystalline GeSb2Te4 (GST) is remarkable material, as it allows to
continuously tune the electrical resistance by orders of magnitude without
involving a phase transition or stoichiometric changes, just by altering the
short-range order. While well-ordered specimen are metallic, increasing amounts
of disorder can eventually lead to an insulating state with vanishing
conductivity in the 0K limit, but a similar number of charge carriers. These
observations make disordered GST one of the most promising candidates for the
realization of a true Anderson insulator. While so far the low-temperature
properties have mostly been studied in films of small grain size, here a
sputter-deposition process is employed that enables preparation of a large
variety of these GST states including metallic and truly insulating ones. By
growing films of GST on mica substrates, biaxially textured samples with huge
grain sizes are obtained. A series of these samples is employed for transport
measurements, as their electron mean free path can be altered by a factor of
20. Yet, the mean free path always remains more than an order of magnitude
smaller than the lateral grain size. This proves unequivocally that grain
boundaries play a negligible role for electron scattering, while intragrain
scattering, presumably by disordered vacancies, dominates. Most importantly,
these findings underline that the Anderson insulating state as well as the
system's evolution towards metallic conductivity are indeed intrinsic
properties of the material.

Materials Science