Electron Transport in Granular Metals

Abstract

We consider thermodynamic and transport properties of a long granular array with strongly connected grains (inter-grain conductance g>>1.) We find that the system exhibits activated behavior of conductance and thermodynamic density of states ~exp(-T*/T) where the gap, T*, is parametrically larger than the energy at which conventional perturbation theory breaks down. The scale T* represents energy needed to create a long single-electron charge soliton propagating through the array.

4 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (2)

• Quantum Effects in Coulomb Blockade
• Transition from insulating to a non-insulating temperature dependence of the conductivity in granular metals

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