Conductance of a Single-mode Electron Waveguide with Statistically Identical Rough Boundaries

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the conductance of narrow 2D electron waveguides with statistically identical rough boundaries depends on boundary correlation, revealing unique scattering mechanisms and proposing a new calculation method for their dynamical properties.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to analyze conductance in waveguides with perfectly correlated rough boundaries, focusing on slope fluctuations rather than width variations.

Findings

Conductance is highly sensitive to boundary intercorrelation properties.

In the case of completely correlated boundaries, scattering is due to asperity slope fluctuations.

The proposed method calculates dynamical characteristics without restrictions on asperity height.

Abstract

Transport characteristics of pure narrow 2D-conductors, in which the electron scattering is caused by rough side boundaries, have been studied. The conductance of such strips is highly sensitive to the intercorrelation properties of inhomogeneities of the opposite edges. The case with completely correlated statistically identical boundaries (CCB) is a peculiar one. Herein the electron scattering is uniquely due to fluctuations of the asperity slope and is not related to the strip width fluctuations. Owing to this, the electron relaxation lengths, specifically the localization length, depend quite differently on the asperity parameters as compared to the conductors with arbitrarily intercorrelated edges. The method for calculating the dynamical characteristics of the CCB electron waveguides is proposed clear of the restrictions on the asperity height.