Coherence of polaronic transport in layered metals

TL;DR

This paper explains the temperature-dependent interlayer conductivity in layered metals using a polaron model, highlighting coherent and incoherent transport channels and providing insights into various transport properties.

Contribution

It introduces a polaron-based framework to understand anisotropic transport in layered metals, linking microscopic mechanisms to macroscopic measurements.

Findings

Temperature dependence explained by polaron model

Identifies coherent and incoherent transport channels

Provides predictions for magnetoresistance, thermopower, spectral function, optical conductivity

Abstract

Layered systems shows anisotropic transport properties. The interlayer conductivity show a general temperature dependence for a wide class of materials. This can be understood if conduction occurs in two different channels activated at different temperatures. We show that the characteristic temperature dependence can be explained using a polaron model for the transport. The results show an intuitive interpretation in terms of coherent and incoherent quasi-particles within the layers. Further, we extract results for the magnetoresistance, thermopower, spectral function and optical conductivity for the model and discuss application to experiments.