Recent progress in physics of disordered metals and semiconductors has led to the development of theoretical methods adequate for their description. Now, it is completely clear that such disciplines of theoretical physics as theories of disorder and quantum chaos are necessary to describe, for example, modern mesoscopic quantum devices. Moreover, these disciplines are converging toward each other, an exciting theoretical development. Although a lot of information can be obtained from numerical simulations, an analytical approach unifying disorder and chaos is definitely desirable. Besides, numerical simulation is often not conclusive and one has to have an analytical tool for calculations.

Currently the most efficient analytical method enabling us to achieve both goals is the supersymmetry technique, and many problems of disorder and chaos can be studied with a supermatrix nonlinear σ-model. The number of publications using the supersymmetry technique has been growing fast in the last 2–3 years. At the same time, many people still have a hesitation to start study of the method. The main reason is that they are afraid that manipulating the Grassmann anticommuting variables is something very difficult and, what is more important, that having spent a considerable time learning the technique, they would be able only to reproduce results that could be obtained by other more standard techniques. Such an attitude is to a great extent due to absence of a self-contained literature on the subject.

Description of phase transitions

Phenomenological approach

Some basic information concerning theory of the Anderson metal–insulator transition has been given in Chapters 3 and 5. The agreement of the one-parameter scaling hypothesis of Abrahams et al. (1979) with the results of the renormalization group treatment of the nonlinear replica and supermatrix σ-models in 2 + ∈ dimensions was considered by many researchers final proof that the transition was a conventional second-order transition. The only thing that remained to be done was to compute critical exponents, and that could be done by making an expansion in ∈ and putting ∈ = 1 at the end. Other approximate schemes (Götze (1981, 1985), Vollhardt and Wölfle (1980, 1992)) lead to similar results. Although agreement between the exponents computed analytically and those extracted from numerical simulations or experiments was not always good, the validity of the one-parameter scaling description was not usually questioned.

Of course, on the basis of what is known about mesoscopic systems one cannot speak of the average conductance of a finite system, and, possibly, the entire distribution function of the conductances should be scaled. However, renormalization group treatment of the σ-model in 2 + ∈ dimensions does not lead to such a scenario. If one accepts that this approach is appropriate for studying the Anderson transition, the conclusion that the transition is a conventional second-order phase transition is inevitable.

It is clear from the material presented here that the supersymmetry technique, in particular, the supermatrix nonlinear σ-model, is an extremely efficient way of studying various problems. A natural question may be asked: Why does all this work? What is the physical meaning of the invariance of the σ-model under rotations of supermatrices Q?

These questions are not easy to answer. I cannot explain why the supermatrix σ-model enables us to get some nontrivial results that cannot be obtained by other methods currently available. The supersymmetry formalism was derived from the Schrödinger equation with a random potential. All symmetries of the σ-model appeared in the process of the derivation, but the initial Schrödinger equation does not contain them. My attitude to these questions is that all nice symmetry features of the σ-model are formal and it is difficult to attribute to them a clear physical sense.

I want to emphasize that the Grassmann anticommuting variables χi were introduced in a completely formal way. The initial Schrödinger equation did not contain them and they were introduced with the hope that they would help in the calculations. I cannot explain why the variables χi that are completely formal mathematical objects helped to get the results. However, it is not unusual for abstract mathematical objects to be useful for explicit computations.

Basic properties

The recent observations of persistent currents in small metallic rings by Lévy et al. (1990), Chandrasekhar et al. (1991), and Mailly, Chapelier, and Benoit (1993) have opened a new field of research. Although small mesoscopic systems have been under intensive study for quite a long time, they have usually been studied by making contacts with metallic leads. As a result, one could obtain a finite conductance of the system that corresponded to a finite current in the presence of a finite voltage only. The experiments by Lévy et al. (1990) and by Chandrasekhar et al. (1991) were carried out in such a way that the metallic rings remained isolated. A slowly varying magnetic field was applied and a magnetic response was measured. In this situation it became possible to observe persistent currents in quite dirty samples in which the elastic mean free path l was much shorter than the circumference L. The existence of the persistent current is possible in isolated rings only, and Mailly, Chapelier, and Benoit (1993) demonstrated how the value of the persistent current decreases when increasing a weak coupling to leads.

The intriguing question of persistent currents in metal rings enclosing a magnetic flux was discussed in the 1960s by Byers and Yang (1961), F. Bloch (1965, 1968, 1970), Schick (1968), Gunter and Imry (1969).

Reduction to a regular model, mean field theory

Regular model with “interaction”

The main task of this section is to represent the physical quantities discussed in the preceding chapter in such a form that one could average over the random potential at the beginning of the calculations. One way to do so is the replica trick suggested by Edwards and Anderson (1975) for a study of spin glasses. The first works on the application of field theoretical models to disorder problems were based on this trick (Wegner (1979), Schäfer and Wegner (1980), Efetov, Larkin, and Khmelnitskii (1980)). In the works of Wegner (1979) and Schäfer and Wegner (1980) kinetic quantities were written in terms of functional integrals over conventional numbers, whereas in the work of Efetov, Larkin, and Khmelnitskii (1980) integration over the anticommuting Grassmann variables was used. Then, in both approaches nonlinear σ-models that contained n × n matrices were derived. At the end of calculations one had to take the limit n → 0. The formalism of Efetov, Larkin, and Khmelnitskii (1980) was extended later to include electron–electron interactions (Finkelstein (1983, 1984)) and strong magnetic fields (Levine, Libby, and Pruisken (1984)).

The nonlinear supermatrix σ-model derived later has many common features with the replica σ-model, and it may seem that the calculations within all these models are equivalent.

Small metal particles

General properties

Small clusters of atoms of metallic elements have very unusual physical properties. These objects are not as small as molecules and some of their properties are reminiscent of those of bulk metals. At the same time the electron spectrum is discrete and this has many intriguing consequences. Systems of small metal particles are under very intensive study, and some of their characteristics have various technical applications. However, the physical properties of the metal clusters are no less interesting than possible applications because to describe them one needs modern quantum statistical theories analogous to those developed in nuclear physics. Moreover, some approaches invented studying the metal particles have their applications in nuclear physics and problems of quantum chaos. A complete account of experimental and theoretical results can be found in the review by Halperin (1986). An impression of the state of the art of both the experimental and the theoretical work can be gained from the proceedings of the Fourth International Meeting on Small Particles and Inorganic Clusters (Chapon, Gillet, and Henry (1989)). Some aspects of small particle physics are considered in recent reviews by Staveren, Brom, and de Jongh (1991) and Nagaev (1992).

Following the main idea of this book in this section I want to discuss several important steps in the theoretical understanding of the systems of small metal particles; then in the following sections of this chapter I present results obtained by the supersymmetry technique.

Universal conductance fluctuations

Diffusion modes and conductance fluctuations

During the last 10–15 years study of transport through very small conductors has been a very popular topic of both theoretical and experimental research (for reviews see, e.g., Altshuler, Lee, and Webb (1991); Kirk and Reed (1992); Beenakker and van Houten (1991)). These systems are much larger (typically of the size 100–000 Å) than atomic distances, and, naturally, they cannot be considered as microscopic objects. Then, what can be special in their properties with respect to properties of macroscopic conductors? The answer is related to the quantum interference that proved to be so crucial to the localization problem. Although the conductors may contain internal defects, such disorder does not destroy the coherence of the wave functions and quantum effects can become very important, leading to completely new physical phenomena. The last two chapters were devoted to study of some exotic effects in isolated or almost isolated samples.

The quantum effects in isolated metal particles can be destroyed by inelastic scattering only. It is only at the classical limit that both elastic and inelastic scattering play equivalent roles in transport. Considering inelastic processes one should distinguish between the cases lϕ < L and lϕ > L, where lϕ is the inelastic mean free path and L is the size of the sample.

Brownian motion model

Fokker–Planck equation for the Coulomb gas model

In the preceding chapters the relation between random matrix theory and the zero-dimensional supersymmetric σ-model was emphasized many times. This equivalence makes it possible to use the σ-model for a description of such nontrivial problems as transport through quantum dots in the regime of chaotic dynamics. By changing external parameters such as magnetic field or gate voltage one can study correlations of physical quantities at different values of these parameters. One example has been considered in Section 9.4. One can also study the dependence of average quantities on the external parameters, and the persistent currents considered in Chapter 8 are this type of problem. In many cases the final formulae are quite universal, depending only on the mean level spacing and several parameters characterizing changes in the initial Hamikonian.

It is clear now that study of parametric correlations leads to new and very interesting and unexpected results. Again, much important work has been performed in the last 1–2 years, and therefore the content of this chapter reflects only the present state of the art.

I want to present first what was known about parametric correlations in random matrix theory in the past. The most important work in this area is that of Dyson (1962b), who proposed to use the idea of Brownian motion, well known in kinetic theory (Chandrasekhar ((1943), Uhlenbeck and Ornstein (1930), Wang and Uhlenbeck (1945), Isihara (1971)), to describe parametric variations of physical quantities.

Although oxides have been the subject of active research for many years, they have attracted an increasing interest in the last decade. One reason for this interest is the discovery of superconductivity in copper oxide based materials, in 1986, with critical temperatures higher than the temperature of liquid nitrogen. Simple oxides have also been more thoroughly studied and a detailed analysis of their surface properties has been undertaken, thanks to several technological advances made during this period. The success in compensating charging effects, for example, has allowed spectroscopic measurements to be performed. Photoemission, x-ray absorption, Auger spectroscopy and low-energy electron diffraction now yield quantitative information, as they do for semi-conductors and metals. Topographic images of insulating surfaces can be recorded with an atomic force microscope. On the theoretical side, advanced numerical codes have been developed, which solve the electronic structure, optimize the geometry, and start accounting for dynamical effects in an ab initio way. The results presently available allow a first synthesis of the field.

The interest and the richness of the field of oxide surfaces lies in its inter-disciplinary nature and in the diversity of questions it raises, both on a fundamental and on an applied level. For example, geophysicists and geologists consider in detail the surface properties and porosity of the rocks of our earth, made of complex oxides whose properties are, to a large extent, controlled by the grain boundaries and internal surfaces.

In the surface layers, the breaking of anion–cation bonds and the modifications of inter-atomic distances, induced by relaxation, rumpling or reconstruction effects, perturb the electrostatic potentials and the orbital hybridization. The surface electronic structure is thus modified and presents specific features compared to the bulk characteristics. In this chapter, we will discuss various aspects of these changes, relevant for planar semi-infinite systems, thin films and defected surfaces. We will restrict ourselves to the results obtained on single crystals, prepared under controlled conditions and studied in ultra-high vacuum (Henrich, 1983; 1985; Henrich and Cox, 1994). Instead of focusing on specific properties of this or that oxide, we will try to extract the general trends concerning the density of states, the gap width, the charge densities, etc., and, whenever this is possible, we will point out the physical origin of the differences found between the bulk and the surface electronic structure.

Experimental and theoretical studies

The study of the surface electronic structure requires specific tools. For example, in spectroscopic experiments, in order to enhance the surface signal with respect to the bulk one, to obtain information on the outer layers, one has to send or detect particles with small mean free paths, which mainly sample the few outer layers. Similarly, special care has to be taken in the numerical approaches. We will quickly review some aspects of this question, both from the experimental and the theoretical sides.

Introduction

The research field of metal–oxide interfaces is very active, partly because of their important technological applications. For example, in heterogeneous catalysis, oxide powders or porous compounds, such as zeolites, are used as supports for transition metal clusters, because they provide a large – external or internal – specific area of contact with the metal. In many cases, it is also recognized that they modify the cluster reactivity (Dufour and Perdereau, 1988). Oxide surfaces, such as those of MgO or SrTiO3, whose quality and planarity are well controlled, have been used as substrates for the deposition of thin superconductor films. This has been particularly important since the discovery that some copper oxide based compounds remain superconductors above liquid nitrogen temperature. Thin metallic films are also deposited on various oxides in the fabrication of optical devices, or on glass in the fabrication of mirrors.

Oxides are often chosen as insulation materials, for example as sheaths for resistive heaters, due to their low electrical and thermal conductivity. In MOS transitors (MOS = Metal–Oxide–Semi-conductor), a thin SiO2 layer is deposited between a doped silicon substrate and the metallic gate to control the channel conductivity. In more complicated electronic devices, with several integration levels, SiO2 is also used to make insulating dielectric layers.