MIT OpenCourseWare http ocw mit edu 8 512 Theory of Solids II Spring 2009 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use visit http ocw mit edu terms 1 Lecture 6 Scaling Theory of Localization 6 1 Notion of dimensionless conductance G where G is resistance 1 e2 G Ld 2 L dimension of system g Recall Einstein s formula which relates conductivity to di usion 2e2 N 0 D where N 0 of states energy unit volume D di usion coe cient Way to derive above equation is to calculate charge current density in two ways j eD n j V dV n dn current as di usion of charge carriers V is local electrical potential Now the local chemical potential is linearly related to V i e eV constant dn dn 2N 0 e e dv d j n e 2N 0 2 is for spin 1 Comparing this to Einstein s formula one gets N 0 D 2e2 D 2N 0 G e2 D Ld 2 N 0 L2 2e2 2 2 6 2 Thouless Energy The last equation suggests to de ne a quantity called Thouless Energy ET ET D 2 L T 3 Now 1 G 2e2 ET N 0 is level spacing g ET Physical interpretation Assume the one box problem is solved and we want to study the behavior of the system as it gets bigger Each box has its own distribution of energy levels As the two boxes are in contact the wavefunctions that were initially localized in separate boxes would mix For weak coupling one can do perturbation theory if mixing is smaller than typical level spacing For weak mixing the wavefunctions resemble the initial states and so one gets localized distribution For strong coupling the nal state would be a complicated mixture of all initial states and we get extended states Physically one can think of di usion as lifetime to leak particle out of box And so it s reasonable to think of Thouless energy as e ective coupling Thus the ratio ET which also represents the dimensionless conductance g characterizes the further scaling properties 3 6 3 Sensitivity of energy eigenvalues to boundary conditions and its relation to ET Here we derive another form of ET Usually one uses periodic boundary conditions x L x is an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian One can as well use the twisted boundary condition x L ei x is same for all Such boundary conditions can arise if a magnetic eld is present Consider applying a uniform magnetic eld magnetic eld is con ned in ux tube along the z direction And we study the behavior of the eigenstates sitting on a cylindrical surface whose axis is parallel to the magnetic eld 1 2m eA i c 2 V r E exp i x o A d 1 2 r v r r E r 2m Thus the gauge transformation has removed A from the Schrodinger equation but now r has di erent boundary conditions 4 x L x exp i L o x exp i B A d where B is magnetic ux We will compute E using perturbation theory e H V x A Vx c L To rst order in H E 0 as H Vx 0 For perturbation theory second order in A we have two terms the diamagnetic term e2 A2 c2 2m which gives a constant shift to all energy levels 11 2 2m The paramagnetic term gives to second order in A or Vx A 2 E E 2 Vx 2 L2 E E 2 E 1 2 Vx 2 2 mL2 L2 E E 4 Thus one gets the same matrix element Vx that appeared in derivation of Kubo formula Typical variation in energy levels can look like this As rst order shift is zero all curves have zero slope at 0 All low lying states don t undergo much variation as they occur in potential valleys and hence localized One can do a sanity check on Eq 4 On general grounds there is equal probability for any level to go up or down and so average variation in E s should be zero By using Thomas Reich Kunz F sum rule one can indeed show that 2 E 2 0 5 Now Vx 2 V 2 Fluctuation of such terms is dominated by the term with maximum weight i e by smallest E E variance Vx 2 E E V2 This is the average uctuation in the curvature Thus typically 2 2 E 1 V Et 2 L2 Et 1 V2 1 2 V N 0 L2 L2 Now 2e2 N 2 0 N 0 V 2 2e2 D By comparing Boltzmann Einstein formula for D V 2 N 0 Et D ET L2 Thus for large ET one gets extended states and hence large conductance while for small ET one gets localized states and hence small conductance Thus we have established the relevance of Thouless energy for conductance 6 6 4 Application to 1 System One expects Ohm s low behavior for small length g L 1 L as L increases g L decreases as g L 1 ET 1 and so the states are localized g L e L For large L is the localization length Due to inelastic scattering the eigenvalues become ill de ned because of dephasing Let us de ne a quantity as the time over which a state looses the information about its phase for various scattering mechanisms can be given by 1 T2 ee F 1 e phonon T3 2 D Let us de ne L as the length over which the dephasing occurs L So our argument works if Do L width of the sample 7 Otherwise we are considering a system to which our derivation based on Quantum Mechanics ideas doesn t apply and the system should rather be treated classically And in such a situation one used Ohm s law So to observe non metallic behavior of copper wire one needs to have a very small wire thickness or very low temperature as L increases with decrease in temperature Thus one expects the following behavior of conductivity of a one dimensional system For L we can think of conductivity in terms of hopping of electrons over a distance scale in time This gives rise to a di usion constant of 2 and resistivity which is proportional to T p reference book by Y Imry