Scientists map how electricity flows through twisted materials at freezing temperatures
Researchers have decoded the rules governing electrical conductivity in anisotropic materials—those with directional properties—at low temperatures, revealing that charges follow predictable pathways through specially aligned structures. The findings could accelerate development of more efficient organic semiconductors and flexible electronics, industries racing to compete with traditional silicon.
Originaltitel: Activated hopping transport in anisotropic systems at low temperatures
<p>Numerical calculations of anisotropic hopping transport based on the resistor network model are presented. Conductivity is shown to follow the stretched exponential dependence on temperature with exponents increasing from 1/4 to 1 as the wave functions become anisotropic and their localization length in the direction of charge transport decreases. For sufficiently strong anisotropy, this results in nearest- neighbor hopping at lowtemperatures due to the formation of a single conduction path, which adjusts in the planes where the wave functions overlap strongly. In the perpendicular direction, charge transport follows variable- range hopping, a behavior that agrees with experimental data on organic semiconductors.</p>