Explanation to the resistance anomaly observed in nanowires

A possible model for a resistance anomaly of nanowires is proposed. As the radius of a quantum wire shrinks below either the impurity (scatterer) potential ranges or the carrier sizes, the usual inverse (of wire cross section) Ohm's law fails. Instead, each scatterer contributes almost equally to the wire resistance, and the resistance is proportional to the cross section (number of scatterers). The model explains well the recent resistance measurement on InN nanowires [C.-Y Chang et al., J. Electron. Mater. 35, 738 (2006)]. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.