Electromechanical noise in a diffusive conductor.
Electrons moving in a conductor can transfer momentum to the lattice via collisions with impurities and boundaries, giving rise to a fluctuating mechanical stress tensor. The root-mean-squared momentum transfer per scattering event in a disordered metal (of dimension L greater than the mean-free path l and screening length xi) is found to be reduced below the Fermi momentum by a factor of order l/L for shear fluctuations and (xi/L)(2) for pressure fluctuations. The excitation of an elastic bending mode by the shear fluctuations is estimated to fall within current experimental sensitivity for a nanomechanical oscillator.
Shytov
A V
AV
Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-4030, USA.
Levitov
L S
LS
Beenakker
C W J
CW