Breakdown of Pippard ineffectiveness condition for phonon-electron scattering in micro and nanostructures

A. Sergeev; V. Mitin

doi:10.1209/epl/i2000-00386-y

All issues

Volume 51 / No 6 (September II 2000)

Europhys. Lett., 51 6 (2000) 641-647

Abstract

Issue		Europhys. Lett. Volume 51, Number 6, September II 2000


Page(s)		641 - 647
Section		Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties
DOI		https://doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2000-00386-y
Published online		01 September 2002

Europhys. Lett., 51 (6), pp. 641-647 (2000)

Breakdown of Pippard ineffectiveness condition for phonon-electron scattering in micro and nanostructures

A. Sergeev and V. Mitin

Department of ECE, Wayne State University - Detroit, MI 48202, USA

Received: 6 December 1999
Accepted: 20 July 2000

Abstract

The Pippard ineffectiveness condition —that electrons strongly scattering from impurities and defects are ineffective in scattering phonons— is based on the assumption that electron scatterers vibrate in the same way as the host lattice. Then the relaxation rate of a low-energy phonon with the wave vector q is $1/\tau_{\rm ph\hbox{-}e}\sim u^2 q^2 l /v_{\rm F}$ (u and v_F are the sound velocity and Fermi velocity, l is the electron mean free path). Boundaries and defects moving differently from host lattice drastically change the character of the interference between scattering processes and increase the phonon-electron coupling. In the presence of the quasistatic potential the phonon relaxation is $(q^2lL)^{-1}$ times faster: $1/\tau_{\rm ph\mbox{-}e} \sim u^2/(v_{\rm F} L)$ (L is the electron mean free path with respect to scattering from the quasistatic potential). Analogous effect is expected for phonons with $\omega \sim 0.01 \omega_{\rm D}$ ( $\omega_{\rm D}$ is the Debye frequency) in conductors with substitutional disorder.-1

PACS: 63.20.Kr – Phonon-electron and phonon-phonon interactions / 72.10.-d – Theory of electronic transport, scattering mechanisms

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