Interlayer hopping properties of electrons in layered metals

TL;DR

This paper develops a formalism to analyze electron tunneling between layers in layered metals, linking in-plane electron interactions with out-of-plane coherence, and provides response functions comparable to experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a new formalism based on the spin-boson Hamiltonian to study interlayer electron tunneling considering electron correlations.

Findings

Established the relation between Fermi liquid deviations and out-of-plane coherence.

Derived response functions that match experimental data.

Analyzed different models of out-of-plane tunneling.

Abstract

A formalism is proposed to study the electron tunneling between extended states, based on the spin-boson Hamiltonian previously used in two-level systems. It is applied to analyze the out--of--plane tunneling in layered metals considering different models. By studying the effects of in--plane interactions on the interlayer tunneling of electrons near the Fermi level, we establish the relation between departure from Fermi liquid behavior driven by electron correlations inside the layer and the out of plane coherence. Response functions, directly comparable with experimental data are obtained.