Quantum Limits of Electronic Transport in Nanostructured Macroscopic Conductors

TL;DR

This paper develops an atomistic framework linking quantum transport, disorder, and magnetic effects in nanostructured conductors, validated by high-field magnetotransport experiments on carbon nanotube fibers.

Contribution

It introduces a unified quantum-coherent transport model connecting microscopic electronic structure to macroscopic magnetotransport in disordered networks.

Findings

Positive magnetoresistance depends on junction overlap length.

Negative magnetoresistance mainly arises from lattice-mismatched heterojunctions.

Junction transport explains the observed quadratic magnetoresistance.

Abstract

Macroscopic assemblies of one- and two-dimensional materials promise to translate nanoscale electronic properties into device-scale performance, yet the microscopic principles governing charge transport in such networks remain unresolved. In these systems, conductivity is often interpreted using phenomenological models that do not explicitly connect electronic structure to macroscopic magnetotransport. Here we develop a unified atomistic framework that links quantum-coherent transport, thermal disorder and magnetic-field effects, and combine it with ultrahigh-field magnetotransport measurements up to 60 T over a broad temperature range on carbon nanotube fibres. We show that positive magnetoresistance is controlled by junction overlap length, whereas negative magnetoresistance arises predominantly from lattice-mismatched heterojunctions rather than weak localisation alone. Statistical analysis of a large-scale numerical dataset reveals that the experimentally observed positive quadratic magnetoresistance originates from junction transport. These results show that macroscopic transport in disordered low-dimensional networks is governed primarily by junction-level quantum interference rather than solely by defects or doping.