Inelastic electron transport in granular arrays

Journal Article · Wed Nov 15 00:00:00 EST 2006 · Annals of Physics (New York)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aop.2005.12.012· OSTI ID:20845940

Altland, A ^[1]; Glazman, L I ^[2]; Kamenev, A ^[2]; Meyer, J S ^[3]

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1. Institut fuer Theoretische Physik, Universitaet zu Koeln, 50937 Cologne (Germany)
2. Department of Physics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (United States)
3. Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439 (United States) and Department of Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States)

Transport properties of granular systems are governed by Coulomb blockade effects caused by the discreteness of the electron charge. We show that, in the limit of vanishing mean level spacing on the grains, the low-temperature behavior of 1d and 2d arrays is insulating at any inter-grain coupling (characterized by a dimensionless conductance g). In 2d and g >> 1, there is a sharp Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless crossover to the conducting phase at a certain temperature, T {sub BKT}. These results are obtained by applying an instanton analysis to map the conventional 'phase' description of granular arrays onto the dual 'charge' representation.

• OSTI ID: 20845940
• Journal Information: Annals of Physics (New York), Vol. 321, Issue 11; Other Information: DOI: 10.1016/j.aop.2005.12.012; PII: S0003-4916(05)00292-7; Copyright (c) 2006 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-4916
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
CHARGED-PARTICLE TRANSPORT
CHARGED-PARTICLE TRANSPORT THEORY
ELECTRONS
INSTANTONS
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE