Electron transport along a spatially disordered chain in the presence of dissipation

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Abstract
The electronic dc transport along a spatially disordered chain of scatterers is described within the Landauer-Büttiker approach. The chain is composed of single scatterers which allow for elastic as well as for inelastic processes. The scattering matrix of the disorderd chain is calculated with a recursive method. In the absence of dissipation the transmission coefficient and the dc conductance decrease exponentially with the length of the chain. We show that these disorder effects are gradually suppressed with increasing dissipation. For large dissipation the conductivity of the chain becomes even independent of the disorder. The results allow us to relate the onset of the dc conduction at finite temperature to the loss of phase memory during inelastic collisions of the electrons. Further we analyze the decrease of the chemical potential along the chain in presence of disorder. For small dissipation we find a strikingly nonuniform behavior, which is characterized by large steps and nearly constant plateaus in between.