324 research outputs found
Optical Conductivity of Clean Metals
We briefly review some basic aspects of transport in clean metals focusing on
the role of electron-electron interactions and neglecting the effects of
impurities, phonons and interband transitions. Both for small Fermi surfaces of
two and three-dimensional metals and open Fermi surfaces of quasi
one-dimensional metals the dc conductivity sigma is largely dominated by
momentum and pseudo-momentum conservation, respectively. In general, the
frequency and temperature dependencies of sigma(w,T) have very little in
common. For small Fermi surfaces in three dimensions we find for example that
the scattering rate is quadratic in frequency, Gamma \propto w^2, even in the
absence of a T^2 contribution.Comment: invited paper for a special edition of Annalen der Physik
commemorating P. Drud
Unified description of ballistic and diffusive carrier transport in semiconductor structures
A unified theoretical description of ballistic and diffusive carrier
transport in parallel-plane semiconductor structures is developed within the
semiclassical model. The approach is based on the introduction of a
thermo-ballistic current consisting of carriers which move ballistically in the
electric field provided by the band edge potential, and are thermalized at
certain randomly distributed equilibration points by coupling to the background
of impurity atoms and carriers in equilibrium. The sum of the thermo-ballistic
and background currents is conserved, and is identified with the physical
current. The current-voltage characteristic for nondegenerate systems and the
zero-bias conductance for degenerate systems are expressed in terms of a
reduced resistance. For arbitrary mean free path and arbitrary shape of the
band edge potential profile, this quantity is determined from the solution of
an integral equation, which also provides the quasi-Fermi level and the
thermo-ballistic current. To illustrate the formalism, a number of simple
examples are considered explicitly. The present work is compared with previous
attempts towards a unified description of ballistic and diffusive transport.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, REVTEX
Generalized Drude model: Unification of ballistic and diffusive electron transport
For electron transport in parallel-plane semiconducting structures, a model
is developed that unifies ballistic and diffusive transport and thus
generalizes the Drude model. The unified model is valid for arbitrary magnitude
of the mean free path and arbitrary shape of the conduction band edge profile.
Universal formulas are obtained for the current-voltage characteristic in the
nondegenerate case and for the zero-bias conductance in the degenerate case,
which describe in a transparent manner the interplay of ballistic and diffusive
transport. The semiclassical approach is adopted, but quantum corrections
allowing for tunneling are included. Examples are considered, in particular the
case of chains of grains in polycrystalline or microcrystalline semiconductors
with grain size comparable to, or smaller than, the mean free path. Substantial
deviations of the results of the unified model from those of the ballistic
thermionic-emission model and of the drift-diffusion model are found. The
formulation of the model is one-dimensional, but it is argued that its results
should not differ substantially from those of a fully three-dimensional
treatment.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, REVTEX file, to appear in J. Phys.: Condens.
Matte
Alteration of gas phase ion polarizabilities upon hydration in high dielectric liquids
We investigate the modification of gas phase ion polarizabilities upon solvation in polar solvents and ionic liquids. To this aim, we develop a classical electrostatic theory of charged liquids composed of solvent molecules modeled as finite size dipoles, and embedding polarizable ions that consist of Drude oscillators. In qualitative agreement with ab initio calculations of polar solvents and ionic liquids, the hydration energy of a polarizable ion in both types of dielectric liquid is shown to favor the expansion of its electronic cloud. Namely, the ion carrying no dipole moment in the gas phase acquires a dipole moment in the liquid environment, but its electron cloud also reaches an enhanced rigidity. We find that the overall effect is an increase of the gas phase polarizability upon hydration. In the specific case of ionic liquids, it is shown that this hydration process is driven by a collective solvation mechanism where the dipole moment of a polarizable ion induced by its interaction with surrounding ions self-consistently adds to the polarization of the liquid, thereby amplifying the dielectric permittivity of the medium in a substantial way. We propose this self-consistent hydration as the underlying mechanism behind the high dielectric permittivities of ionic liquids composed of small charges with negligible gas phase dipole moment. Hydration being a correlation effect, the emerging picture indicates that electrostatic correlations cannot be neglected in polarizable liquids.Peer reviewe
Anomalous Drude Model
A generalization of the Drude model is studied. On the one hand, the free
motion of the particles is allowed to be sub- or superdiffusive; on the other
hand, the distribution of the time delay between collisions is allowed to have
a long tail and even a non-vanishing first moment. The collision averaged
motion is either regular diffusive or L\'evy-flight like. The anomalous
diffusion coefficients show complex scaling laws. The conductivity can be
calculated in the diffusive regime. The model is of interest for the
phenomenological study of electronic transport in quasicrystals.Comment: 4 pages, latex, 2 figures, to be published in Physical Review Letter
Optical activity induced by curvature in a gravitational pp-wave background
We study optical activity induced by curvature. The optical activity model we
present has two phenomenological gyration parameters, within which we analyze
three model cases, namely, an exactly integrable model, the Landau-Lifshitz
model and the Fedorov model, these latter two are solved in the short
wavelength approximation. The model background is a gravitational pp-wave. The
solutions show that the optical activity induced by curvature leads to Faraday
rotation.Comment: 16 pages, late
Linear functional electromagnetic constitutive relations and plane waves in a hemihedral isotropic material
Nanohelices as superlattices: Bloch oscillations and electric dipole transitions
Subjecting a nanohelix to a transverse electric field gives rise to superlattice behavior with tunable electronic properties. We theoretically investigate such a system and find Bloch oscillations and negative differential conductance when a longitudinal electric field (along the nanohelix axis) is also applied. Furthermore, we study dipole transitions across the transverse-electric-field-induced energy gap, which can be tuned to the eulogized terahertz frequency range by experimentally attainable external fields. We also reveal a photogalvanic effect by shining circularly polarized light onto our helical quantum wire.We acknowledge financial support from the CNRS and from the ANR under Grant No. ANR-14-CE26-0005 Q-MetaMat, as well as the EU H2020 RISE project CoExAN (Grant No. H2020-644076), EU FP7 ITN NOTEDEV (Grant No. FP7-607521), and the FP7 IRSES projects CANTOR (Grant No. FP7-612285), QOCaN (Grant No. FP7-316432), and InterNoM (Grant No. FP7-612624)
Properties of Physical Systems: Transient Singularities on Borders and Surface Transitive Zones
Certain alternative properties of physical systems are describable by
supports of arguments of response functions (e.g. light cone, borders of media)
and expressed by projectors; corresponding equations of restraints lead to
dispersion relations, theorems of counting, etc. As supports are measurable,
their absolutely strict borders contradict the spirit of quantum theory and
their quantum evolution leading to appearance of subtractions or certain needed
flattening would be considered. Flattening of projectors introduce transitive
zones that can be examined as a specification of adiabatic hypothesis or the
Bogoliubov regulatory function in QED. For demonstration of their possibilities
the phenomena of refraction and reflection of electromagnetic wave are
considered; they show, in particular, the inevitable appearing of double
electromagnetic layers on all surfaces that formerly were repeatedly
postulated, etc. Quantum dynamics of projectors proves the neediness of
subtractions that usually are artificially adding and express transient
singularities and zones in squeezed forms.Comment: 12 p
Nonlinear Coherent Magneto-Optical Response of a Single Chiral Carbon Nanotube
Published versio
- …