INFLUENCE OF EVANESCENT STATES ON QUANTUM TRANSPORT THROUGH AN ARRAY OF ELASTIC SCATTERERS

The problems of Anderson localization and universal conductance fluctuations have been treated in the past with theoretical techniques that did not usually include evanescent states in the analysis. In this paper, we have examined the effect of evanescent states on electron transport through a disordered structure using a novel generalized scattering matrix formalism. We find that evanescent states have a significant influence on the resistance of a disordered sample, especially when the degree of disorder is large. We also find that neglecting evanescent states in theoretical calculations can lead to a substantial error in the estimation of the localization length in realistic semiconductor structures. © 1990.