Quantum and Boltzmann transport in the quasi-one-dimensional wire with rough edges

TL;DR

This paper compares quantum and semiclassical transport in quasi-one-dimensional wires with rough edges and impurity disorder, revealing different regimes of conductance, resistance, and localization, and highlighting the non-semiclassical nature of edge roughness scattering.

Contribution

It provides a detailed quantum analysis of transport in rough-edged wires and compares it with impurity-disordered wires, introducing new insights into localization and the semiclassical limit.

Findings

Quantum transport shows crossover from ballistic to diffusive behavior with increasing length.

Edge roughness leads to non-semiclassical diffusive transport unless correlation length is large.

Localization onset occurs at lengths exceeding the localization length, with different resistance behaviors for rough edges and impurities.

Abstract

We study quantum transport in Q1D wires made of a 2D conductor of width W and length L>>W. Our aim is to compare an impurity-free wire with rough edges with a smooth wire with impurity disorder. We calculate the electron transmission through the wires by the scattering-matrix method, and we find the Landauer conductance for a large ensemble of disordered wires. We study the impurity-free wire whose edges have a roughness correlation length comparable with the Fermi wave length. The mean resistance <\rho> and inverse mean conductance 1/<g> are evaluated in dependence on L. For L -> 0 we observe the quasi-ballistic dependence 1/<g> = <\rho> = 1/N_c + \rho_{qb} L/W, where 1/N_c is the fundamental contact resistance and \rho_{qb} is the quasi-ballistic resistivity. As L increases, we observe crossover to the diffusive dependence 1/<g> = <\rho> = 1/N^{eff}_c + \rho_{dif} L/W, where \rho_{dif} is the resistivity and 1/N^{eff}_c is the effective contact resistance corresponding to the N^{eff}_c open channels. We find the universal results \rho_{qb}/\rho_{dif} = 0.6N_c and N^{eff}_c = 6 for N_c >> 1. As L exceeds the localization length \xi, the resistance shows onset of localization while the conductance shows the diffusive dependence 1/<g> = 1/N^{eff}_c + \rho_{dif} L/W up to L = 2\xi and the localization for L > 2\xi only. On the contrary, for the impurity disorder we find a standard diffusive behavior, namely 1/<g> = <\rho> = 1/N_c + \rho_{dif} L/W for L < \xi. We also derive the wire conductivity from the semiclassical Boltzmann equation, and we compare the semiclassical electron mean-free path with the mean free path obtained from the quantum resistivity \rho_{dif}. They coincide for the impurity disorder, however, for the edge roughness they strongly differ, i.e., the diffusive transport is not semiclassical. It becomes semiclassical for the edge roughness with large correlation length.