Quasi-Ballistic Electron Transport in Random Superlattices

We theoretically study electron transport in disordered, quantum-well based, semiconductor superlattices with structural short-range correlations. Our system consists of equal width square barriers and quantum wells with two different thicknesses. The two kinds of quantum wells are randomly distributed along the growth direction. Structural correlations are introduced by adding the constraint that one of the wells always appears in pairs. We show that such correlated disordered superlattices exhibit a strong enhancement of their dc conductance as compared to usual random ones, giving rise to quasi-ballistic electron transport. Our predictions can be used to demonstrate experimentally that structural correlations inhibit the localization effects of disorder. We specifically describe the way superlattices should be built and experiments should be carried out for that purpose.Comment: REVTeX 3.0, 7 pages, 4 figures on request from FD-A ([email protected]). Submitted to Physical Review B. Preprint MA/UC3M/12/199

Absence of localization and large dc conductance in random superlattices with correlated disorder

We study how the influence of structural correlations in disordered systems manifests itself in experimentally measurable magnitudes, focusing on dc conductance of semiconductor superlattices with general potential profiles. We show that the existence of bands of extended states in these structures gives rise to very noticeable peaks in the finite temperature dc conductance as the chemical potential is moved through the bands or as the temperature is increased from zero. On the basis of these results we discuss how dc conductance measurements can provide information on the location and width of the bands of extended states. Our predictions can be used to demonstrate experimentally that structural correlations inhibit the localization effects of disorder.Comment: REVTeX 3.0, 14 pages, 11 figures available on request from ED ([email protected]). Submitted to Phys Rev B. MA/UC3M/06/9

Excitation decay in one-dimensional disordered systems with paired traps

Incoherent transport of excitations in one-dimensional disordered lattices with pairs of traps placed at random is studied by numerically solving the corresponding master equation. Results are compared to the case of lattices with the same concentration of unpaired traps, and it is found that pairing of traps causes a slowdown of the decay rate of both the mean square displacement and the survival probability of excitations. We suggest that this result is due to the presence of larger trap-free segments in the lattices with paired disorder, which implies that pairing of traps causes less disruption on the dynamics of excitations. In the conclusion we discuss the implications of our work, placing it in a more general context.Comment: REVTeX 3.0, 10 pages, 7 figures available on request from FD-A ([email protected]), Universidad Carlos III preprint MA/UC3M/08/9