Phase-transition–like behavior of strong-field classical magnetotransport in a composite medium with a periodic columnar microstructure

School of Physics and Astronomy, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel

Received: 20 October 1998
Accepted: 23 December 1998

Abstract

A phase-transition–like change from saturating to non-saturating behavior is found in the longitudinal bulk effective magnetoresistivity along some fixed directions of a two-dimensional periodic array of long, parallel, perfectly insulating inclusions embedded in a simple, free-electron conducting host. Near the transition, exhibits scaling behavior, with a scaling variable that is the ratio of two physical lengths which are tending to 0. At the transition, the local current is constrained to flow in some very narrow boundary layers.