Physical mechanisms of nonlinear conductivity: a model analysis

Abstract

Nonlinear effects are omnipresent in thin films of ion conducting materials showing up as a significant increase of the conductivity. For a disordered hopping model general physical mechanisms are identified giving rise to the occurrence of positive or negative nonlinear effects, respectively. Analytical results are obtained in the limit of high but finite dimensions. They are compared with the numerical results for 3D up to 6D systems. A very good agreement can be found, in particular for higher dimensions. The results can also be used to rationalize previous numerical simulations. The implications for the interpretation of nonlinear conductivity experiments on inorganic ion conductors are discussed.

References in corpus (4)

• Fundamental questions relating to ion conduction in disordered solids
• Weak disorder: anomalous transport and diffusion are normal yet again
• Classical Driven Transport in Open Systems with Particle Interactions and General Couplings to Reservoirs
• Nonlinear hopping transport in ring systems and open channels