MATERIALS SCIENCE SEMINAR

ABSTRACT: Although in many situations electron-electron (e-e) interactions do not affect the system resistivity because they conserve electron quasimomentum, generally this is not so. In modern high mobility nanostructures at intermediate temperatures the inelastic mean free path due to e-e scattering may be shorter than the spatial scale of the disorder potential. In this regime the e-e interactions have a dramatic effect on the resistivity. Electric current may be viewed as a hydrodynamic flow of a strongly interacting electron liquid moving in a smooth disorder potential. This flow is markedly different from the Stokes flow. Dissipation of mechanical energy and resistivity are dominated by not by viscous stresses but by the heat fluxes that arise in the fluid in the presence of the current. The system resistivity can be expressed in terms of the kinetic coefficients of the electron fluid; viscosity, thermal conductivity, and spin diffusion coefficient.