Accuracy of classical conductivity theory at atomic scales for free fermions in disordered media (Q1739228)

In view of on-going experimental and technological importance of small electronic devices, it is of interest to give a precise mathematical meaning to the classical-quantum interface. There is an ample literature coverage of charged transport properties of fermions in disordered media. The current study covers a new theoretical aspect of the problem, not exploited before. Instead of directly dealing with interacting fermions, the noninteracting case is considered. Nonetheless, within this non-interacting class, the considered Hamiltonians are fairy general, since disorder is defined via random potentials and random, complex-valued, hopping amplitudes, which are only assumed to have ergodic distributions. In this regime, it is proved that quantum uncertainty of microscopic current density around the classical macroscopic values is suppressed, exponentially fast with respect to the volume of the region where an electric field is applied. The results obtained stay in close affinity (accordance) with recent experimental observations. Namely, there it has been established that quantum effects on charge transport almost disappear for nanowires of lengths larger than few nanometers, even at very low temperatures.