  The conductivity of a granular metal or an array of quantum dots usually has
the temperature dependence associated with variable range hopping within the
soft Coulomb gap of density of states. This is difficult to explain because
neutral dots have a hard charging gap at the Fermi level. We show that
uncontrolled or intentional doping of the insulator around dots by donors leads
to random charging of dots and finite bare density of states at the Fermi
level. Then Coulomb interactions between electrons of distant dots results in
the a soft Coulomb gap. We show that in a sparse array of dots the bare density
of states oscillates as a function of concentration of donors and causes
periodic changes in the temperature dependence of conductivity. In a dense
array of dots the bare density of states is totally smeared if there are
several donors per dot in the insulator.
