Phenomenology of conduction in incoherent layered crystals

Abstract

A novel phenomenological approach to the analysis of the conductivities of incoherent layered crystals is presented. It is based on the fundamental relationship between the resistive anisotropy σ ab /σc and the ratio of the phase coherence lengths in the respective directions. We explore the model-independent consequences of a general assumption that the out-of-plane phase coherence length of single electrons is a short fixed distance of the order of interlayer spacing. Several topics are discussed: application of the scaling theory, magnetoresistivity, the effects of substitutions and the intermediate regime of conduction when both coherence lengths change with temperature, but at different rate.

Transport enhancement from incoherent coupling between one-dimensional quantum conductors

“…It has been known for many years that coherent and incoherent particle transport processes take place in various condensed matter systems. These include cuprates [18][19][20] and several organic conductors such as conjugated polymers [21,22], layered organic metals [23,24] as well as Bechgaard and Fabre salts [25][26][27]. As illustrated in figures 1(a), (b) these systems share a common feature, which is a highly anisotropic structure consisting of lattice sites strongly coupled in one or two directions and weakly coupled in other directions.…”

Heat exchange mediated by a quantum system

“…To put this result into a different perspective, the PCV is the minimal size block for which one can introduce the notion of thermal conductivity. One can argue that the thermal conductance of the PCV of phonons in an anisotropic medium is isotropic, similar to the electric conductance in anisotropic metals [53], namely, K ϕ,x = K ϕ,y = K ϕ,z . If this assertion were true, the anisotropy is defined by the following relationship:…”