Coherent forward scattering as a signature of Anderson metal-insulator transitions

• Main Authors: Ghosh, Sanjib, Miniatura, Christian, Cherroret, Nicolas, Delande, Dominique
• Other Authors: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Anderson metal-insulator transition; Coherent scattering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/82334; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/43524
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

We show that the coherent forward scattering (CFS) interference peak amplitude sharply jumps from zero to a finite value upon crossing a metal-insulator transition. Extensive numerical simulations reveal that the CFS peak contrast obeys the one-parameter scaling hypothesis and gives access to the critical exponents of the transition. We also discover that the critical CFS peak directly controls the spectral compressibility at the transition where eigenfunctions are multifractal, and we demonstrate the universality of this property with respect to various types of disorder.