title: Localization/Quasi-delocalization transitions and quasi-mobility-edges in shell-doped nanowires.
abstract: We propose a novel concept, namely, shell-doping of nanowires, for control of carrier mobility in nanowires. Different from traditional doping, where dopant atoms are distributed uniformly inside nanowires, shell-doping spatially confines dopant atoms within a few atomic layers in the shell region of a nanowire. Our numerical results based on the Anderson model of electronic disorder show that electrons in a shell-doped nanowire exhibit a peculiar behavior very different from that of uniformly doped nanowires. Beyond some critical doping, electron dynamics in a shell-doped nanowire undergoes a localization/quasi-delocalization transition, namely, the electron diffusion length decreases in the regime of weak disorder but increases in the regime of strong disorder. This transition is a result of the existence of quasi-mobility-edges in the energy spectrum of the system, which can be exploited experimentally through control of electron concentration, carrier density, and degree of disorder.
authors.affiliation: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee 37831, USA. zhongjn@ornl.gov
authors.forename: Jianxin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.forename: G Malcolm
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Stocks
mesh_terms: D004058:Diffusion; D049329:Nanostructures; D036103:Nanotechnology