Carrier mean free path and temperature imbalance in mesoscopic wires

Abstract

Non-coherent electronic transport in metallic nanowires exhibits different carrier temperatures for the non-equilibrium forward and backward populations in the presence of electric fields. Depending on the mean free path that characterizes inter-branch carrier backscattering transport regimes vary between the ballistic and diffusive limits. In particular, we show that the simultaneous measurements of the electrical characteristics and the carrier distribution function offer a direct way to extract the carrier mean free path even when it is comparable to the conductor length. Our model is in good agreement with the experimental work on copper nanowires by Pothier {\it et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 79}, 3490 (1997)] and provides an elegant interpretation of the inhomogeneous thermal broadening observed in the local carrier distribution function as well as its scaling with external bias.

References in corpus (6)

• Energy Band Gap Engineering of Graphene Nanoribbons
• Luttinger Liquid Behavior in Carbon Nanotubes
• Tailoring the atomic structure of graphene nanoribbons by STM lithography
• Quantized thermal conductance of dielectric quantum wires
• Non-equilibrium Tunneling Spectroscopy in Carbon Nanotubes
• Restricted Wiedemann-Franz law and vanishing thermoelectric power in one-dimensional conductors