somewhere in time

The important question, discussed in connection with the Landauer resistance, is the origin of dissipation in this approach. Indeed, finite dc current at finite dc voltage means that the energy is permanently dissipated. On the other hand, we consider only elastic scattering, so that the energy can not be dissipated in the scattering process. This problem is closely related to the phenomena of the residual resistance at low temperature, caused by impurities. In both cases we should introduce some thermalisation. In the case of the transport between the equilibrium contacts, this puzzle is resolved quite easy, the energy is dissipated in the contacts, the details of the dissipation are not relevant. More precisely, the incoming from the contacts to the System particles are equilibrium distributed, while outgoing particles propagate into the contacts
and are thermalised here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 7:40 pm and is filed under My Study. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.