Coherent "metallic" resistance and medium localization in a disordered one-dimensional insulator

Phys Rev Lett. 2003 Sep 26;91(13):136803. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.136803. Epub 2003 Sep 26.

Abstract

It is believed that a disordered one-dimensional (1D) wire with coherent electronic conduction is an insulator with the mean resistance <rho> approximately equal e(2L/xi) and resistance dispersion Delta(rho) approximately equal e(L/xi), where L is the wire length and xi is the electron localization length. Here we show that this 1D insulator undergoes at full coherence the crossover to a 1D "metal," caused by thermal smearing and resonant tunneling. As a result, Delta(rho) is smaller than unity and tends to be L/xi independent, while <rho> grows with L/xi first nearly linearly and then polynomially, manifesting the so-called medium localization.