Delocalization and conductance quantization in one-dimensional systems attached to leads

Abstract

We investigate the delocalization and conductance quantization in finite one-dimensional chains with only off-diagonal disorder coupled to leads. It is shown that the appearance of delocalized states at the middle of the band under correlated disorder is strongly dependent upon the even-odd parity of the number of sites in the system. In samples with inversion symmetry the conductance equals 2e 2 /h for odd samples and is smaller for even parity. This result suggests that this even-odd behavior found previously in the presence of electron correlations may be unrelated to charging effects in the sample.

Transport through a quantum wire with a side quantum-dot array

“…The conductance is 2e 2 /h for odd samples and is smaller for even parity. [6][7][8] The aim of this work is to study theoretically the transport properties of an alternative configuration of a side-coupled QD array attached to a perfect quantum wire ͑QW͒. In this case the QD array acts as a scattering center for transmission through the QW.…”

Coherent transmission through a one-dimensional lattice

“…First-principle calculations [16] and analytical deduction [17] demonstrated interesting oscillation of conduction of the monoatomic wires with the number of atoms, which was observed experimentally in the conductance of mechanically controllable break junctions atomic contacts [18]. The parity effect in the conductance was also found in weakly disordered quasi-1D tight-binding models [20] and dirty superconducting wires [21].…”

“…The parity effect in the conductance was also found in weakly disordered quasi-1D tight-binding models [20] and dirty superconducting wires [21]. However, whether the interesting parity phenomena arising from single particle behavior [17] or manybody correlation effects [22] need more clarifications.…”

“…Recently electronic transport in metallic chains of single atoms has attracted both theoretical [16,17] and experimental [18] interest, since atomic wires represent the ultimate limit of the miniaturization of electrical conductors. Although atomic wires are somewhat simple toy models in textbooks and literatures, they may be the best laboratory to test physical properties of one dimensional (1D) systems.…”

Conductance oscillation and quantization in monatomic Al wires

“…For monovalent atomic wires, the even-odd oscillations of the wire conductance with the wire length has been analyzed explicitly and demonstrated numerically [5], and perfect transmission is found for atom chains of an odd number atoms and a smaller transmission in the even number case. The even-odd oscillations of conductance has been confirmed experimentally for atomic wires formed by noble-metal Au, Pt and Ir atoms [6].…”