A perturbation theory for the Anderson model of magnetic impurities in simple metals

Imperial Users onl

Temperature dependence of the charge carrier mobility in gated quasi-one-dimensional systems

The many-body Monte Carlo method is used to evaluate the frequency dependent conductivity and the average mobility of a system of hopping charges, electronic or ionic on a one-dimensional chain or channel of finite length. Two cases are considered: the chain is connected to electrodes and in the other case the chain is confined giving zero dc conduction. The concentration of charge is varied using a gate electrode. At low temperatures and with the presence of an injection barrier, the mobility is an oscillatory function of density. This is due to the phenomenon of charge density pinning. Mobility changes occur due to the co-operative pinning and unpinning of the distribution. At high temperatures, we find that the electron-electron interaction reduces the mobility monotonically with density, but perhaps not as much as one might intuitively expect because the path summation favour the in-phase contributions to the mobility, i.e. the sequential paths in which the carriers have to wait for the one in front to exit and so on. The carrier interactions produce a frequency dependent mobility which is of the same order as the change in the dc mobility with density, i.e. it is a comparably weak effect. However, when combined with an injection barrier or intrinsic disorder, the interactions reduce the free volume and amplify disorder by making it non-local and this can explain the too early onset of frequency dependence in the conductivity of some high mobility quasi-one-dimensional organic materials.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, to be published in Physical Review

Charge localization in a layer induced by electron-phonon interaction: application to transient polaron formation

We describe electron transfer and localization in a finite two-dimensional transporting layer (15 × 15) using a tight binding Hamiltonian where each site is coupled to phonons. For a narrow electronic band, a polaron is formed with a population that peaks in the middle of the layer and exhibits a concomitant energy lowering. A “local defect” can be simulated by lowering or raising the corresponding site energy. As an example, if we put the defect in one corner, the consequence is that the electron population builds up a polaron which is repelled from this region. The model has been applied to describe the experimentally observed real time polaron formation process in organic layers and in particular in the surface bands of ice-covered metal. We simulate the polaron formation, population distribution and energy relaxation in time. We also investigate the effect of local fluctuations on polaron formation. The formalism can be generalized to excitonic trapping, and has many potential applications

Polaron assisted charge transfer in model biological systems

We use a tight binding Hamiltonian to simulate the electron transfer from an initial charge-separating exciton to a final target state through a two-arm transfer model. The structure is copied from the model frequently used to describe electron harvesting in photosynthesis (photosystems I). We use this network to provide proof of principle for dynamics, in quantum system/bath networks, especially those involving interference pathways, and use these results to make predictions on artificially realizable systems. Each site is coupled to the phonon bath via several electron-phonon couplings. The assumed large energy gaps and weak tunneling integrals linking the last 3 sites give rise to“Stark Wannier like” quantum localization; electron transfer to the target cluster becomes impossible without bath coupling. As a result of the electron-phonon coupling, local electronic energies relax when the site is occupied, and transient polaronic states are formed as photo-generated electrons traverse the system. For a symmetric constructively interfering two pathway network, the population is shared equally between two sets of equivalent sites and therefore the polaron energy shift is smaller. The smaller energy shift however makes the tunnel transfer to the last site slower or blocks it altogether. Slight disorder (or thermal noise) can break the symmetry, permitting essentially a “one path”, and correspondingly more efficient transfer

Magnetotransport in the Insulating Regime of Mn-Doped Gaas

We consider transport in the insulating regime of GaMnAs. We calculate the resistance, magnetoresitance and Hall effect, assuming that the Fermi energy is in the region of localized states above the valence band mobility edge. Both hopping and activated band transport contributions are included. The anomalous Hall current from band states is very different from the hopping Hall current and has extrinsic (skew) and intrinsic (Luttinger) contributions. Comparison with experiment allows us to assess the degree to which band and hopping contribution determine each of the three transport coefficients in a particular temperature range. There are strong indications that the insulating state transport in GaMnAs is controlled primarily by extended state, band edge, transport rather than by variable range hopping, as reported in the literature.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. B, we changed the title, we corrected typos and we added few explanation