Interplay between Anderson and Stark localization in 2D lattices

Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Nov 7;101(19):190602. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.190602. Epub 2008 Nov 6.

Abstract

This Letter studies the dynamics of a quantum particle in 2D lattices with on-site disorder in the presence of a static field. It is shown that the particle is localized along the field direction, while in the orthogonal direction to the field it shows diffusive dynamics for algebraically large times. For weak disorder an analytical expression for the diffusion coefficient is obtained by mapping the problem to a band random matrix. This expression is confirmed by numerical simulations of the particle's dynamics, which also indicate the existence of a universal equation for the diffusion coefficient, valid for an arbitrary disorder strength.