Anomalous Quantum Transport in a Thin Film

We present a numerical study of electron transport in a thin film of varying disorder strength with the distance from its surface. A simple tight-binding model is used to describe the system, in which the film is attached to two metallic electrodes and the coupling of this film to the electrodes is illustrated by the Newns-Anderson chemisorption theory. Quite interestingly we observe that, in the smoothly varying disordered film current amplitude increases with the increase of disorder strength in the strong disorder regime, while it decreases in the weak disorder regime. This behavior is completely opposite from a conventional disordered film, where current amplitude always decreases with the increase of disorder strength.