2017/02/01 by Xavier Andrade, Andrade, Xavier, Sébastien Hamel +3
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Material Dynamics and Properties #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Semiconductor materials and devices #Surface and Thin Film Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1702.00411
openalex publication_date 2017/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We simulate bulk materials under strong currents by following in real-time the dynamics of the electrons under an electric field. By changing the intensity of the electric field, our method can model, for the first time, non-linear effects in the conductivity from first principles. To illustrate our approach, we show calculations that predict that liquid aluminum exhibits negative-differential conductivity for current densities of the order of 1012-1013~A/cm2. We find that the change in the non-linear conductivity emerges from a competition between the accumulation of charge around the nuclei that increases the scattering of the conduction electrons, and a decreasing scattering cross-section at high currents.