2002/10/28 by L. K. Dash, Dash, L. K., A. J. Fisher +1
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) #Surface and Thin Film Phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0210611
arxiv created 2002/10/28 · openalex publication_date 2002/10/28 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Recent advances in single atom manipulation have made it possible to create "wires" in the form of atomic scale linear structures on a semiconductor surface. If such structures are to be used in future electronic devices, it will be necessary to know to what extent they behave as one-dimensional conductors, in which the presence of electron-electron interactions in the wire lead to properties quite different from those found in higher-dimensional systems. In particular, it would be useful to know if these structures retain any of the Luttinger liquid properties that are predicted for a pure one-dimensional metal. However, experimental studies of such structures have so far yielded unclear and contradictory results. We investigate this problem theoretically by creating a highly simplified model of a wire on a surface--a chain of atoms that includes electron-electron interactions to represent the wire, coupled to a similar chain that excludes electron-electron interactions to represent, albeit crudely, the surface. We present results for the eigenstates and spectral functions for such systems that suggest that many Luttinger liquid indicators are present. However the system as a whole retains some residual Fermi liquid characteristics, and therefore merges properties of both one and higher dimensions.