Critical behaviour of thin films with quenched impurities

TL;DR

This paper investigates the critical behavior of thin films with quenched impurities using renormalization-group methods, revealing new critical exponents and finite-size crossover effects relevant to real impure films.

Contribution

It introduces a new critical exponent for film thickness scaling with impurities and analyzes finite-size crossover effects in impure thin films.

Findings

Identification of a new critical exponent for impurity-affected film thickness

Demonstration of differences between infinite and finite film critical properties

Analysis of finite-size crossover in impure films

Abstract

The critical behaviour of thin films containing quenched random impurities and inhomogeneities is investigated by the renormalization-group method. The finite-size crossover in impure films has been considered on the basis of the fundamental relationship between the effective spatial dimensionality and the characteristic lengths of the system. The difference between the critical properties of infinite systems and films is demonstrated and investigated. A new critical exponent, describing the scaling properties of the thickness of films with extended impurities has been deduced and calculated. A special attention is paid to the critical behaviour of real impure films.