Nature of conduction in disordered Nd2-xCexCuO4-δ films -: art. no. 014538

We have used resistivity and Hall measurements on ion-irradiated thin films of the cuprate superconductor Nd2-xCexCuO4-delta (NCCO) to explore the full range of transport behavior as a function of disorder in this material from superconductivity to variable-range-hopping (VRH) conduction. The cotangent of the Hall angle (cot Theta(H)) in lightly irradiated samples exhibited a temperature dependence related to that of resistivity, providing support for a recent theory of Varma and Abrahams. The most highly irradiated samples exhibited rho(T)proportional toexp[(T-o/T)(0.5)] at low temperatures, evidence of VRH in the presence of a Coulomb gap. The change of the Hall number with disorder and temperature is analyzed in the framework of possible two-carrier conduction in NCCO.