Document Type

Article

Date of Original Version

11-15-1998

Abstract

A rigorous perturbative transport equation for ballistic particles in thin films with random rough walls is derived by the diagrammatic Keldysh technique for both quasiclassical and quantized motion across the film. The derivation is based on canonical Migdal transformation that replaces a transport problem with random rough walls by an equivalent problem with flat boundaries and randomly distorted bulk. The rigorous derivation requires a modification of our previously used transformation to avoid non-Hermitian perturbations. The unusual nondiagonal structure of the effective scattering operator makes the transport equation different from the standard Waldmann-Snider equation when the distance between quantized levels for the motion across the film is comparable to the wall-induced perturbation. Outside of this anomalous quantum resonance region, the transport equation is similar to that for scattering by bulk impurities. The magnitude of the anomaly is calculated for degenerate particles and Gaussian correlations of surface inhomogeneities. The transport problem is solved analytically for the single-band occupancy and in the limiting cases of very large and very small correlation radii of inhomogeneities for an arbitrary correlation function of surface roughness. Elsewhere, the transport equation is analyzed numerically for the Gaussian correlation function. Transport coefficients are expressed explicitly via the angular harmonics of the surface correlation function; in the anomalous region, the results contain certain supplemental correlators. The results reveal various effects of interwall correlations on transport including an oscillatory dependence on the number of occupied minibands. The transition from quantum to quasiclassical description of ballistic motion across the (thick) film can be hindered by residual interwall interference effects similar to those in classical optic problems for thick films without bulk attenuation. Erroneous matrix elements in our previous calculations have been corrected.

Publisher Statement

© 1998 American Physical Society

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