Electronic states and transport properties in the Kronig-Penney model with correlated compositional and structural disorder

TL;DR

This paper investigates how correlated compositional and structural disorder affect electronic states and transport in the Kronig-Penney model, providing analytical insights into localization and delocalization phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces an analytical expression for localization length considering arbitrary correlations and explores the effects of self- and cross-correlations on transport properties.

Findings

Long-range self-correlations induce delocalization.

Cross-correlations produce new localization effects.

Correlations significantly modify transport in finite systems.

Abstract

We study the structure of the electronic states and the transport properties of a Kronig-Penney model with weak compositional and structural disorder. Using a perturbative approach we obtain an analytical expression for the localisation length which is valid for disorder with arbitrary correlations. We show how to generate disorder with self- and cross-correlations and we analyse both the known delocalisation effects of the long-range self-correlations and new effects produced by cross-correlations. We finally discuss how both kinds of correlations alter the transport properties in Kronig-Penney models of finite size.