Irradiation-induced confinement in a quasi-one-dimensional metal

TL;DR

This study investigates how minimal electron irradiation causes localization in a quasi-one-dimensional metal, indicating a transition to a state where electrons are confined to small chain clusters, revealing new insights into disorder effects.

Contribution

It provides the first evidence of a disorder-induced crossover to a confined, one-dimensional electronic state in a quasi-one-dimensional metal.

Findings

Localization occurs at very low disorder levels

Electron conduction becomes confined to small chain clusters

A crossover to a one-dimensional ground state is observed

Abstract

The anisotropic resistivity of PrBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$ has been measured as a function of electron irradiation fluence. Localization effects are observed for extremely small amounts of disorder corresponding to electron mean-free-paths of order 100 unit cells. Estimates of the localization corrections suggest that this anomalous localization threshold heralds a crossover to a ground state with pronounced one-dimensional character in which conduction electrons become confined to a small cluster of chains.