Repository logo

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
  1. Home
  2. Academic and Research Output
  3. Journal articles
  4. Tunneling and percolation transport regimes in segregated composites
 
research article

Tunneling and percolation transport regimes in segregated composites

Nigro, B.  
•
Grimaldi, C.  
•
Ryser, P.  
2012
Physical Review E

We consider the problem of electron transport in segregated conductor-insulator composites in which the conducting particles are connected to all others via tunneling conductances, thus forming a global tunneling-connected resistor network. Segregation is induced by the presence of large insulating particles, which forbid the much smaller conducting fillers from occupying uniformly the three-dimensional volume of the composite. By considering both colloidal-like and granular-like dispersions of the conducting phase, modeled respectively by dispersions in the continuum and in the lattice, we evaluate by Monte Carlo simulations the effect of segregation on the composite conductivity sigma, and show that an effective-medium theory applied to the tunneling network reproduces accurately the Monte Carlo results. The theory clarifies that the main effect of segregation in the continuum is that of reducing the mean interparticle distances, leading to a strong enhancement of the conductivity. In the lattice-segregation case the conductivity enhancement is instead given by the lowering of the percolation thresholds for first and beyond-first nearest neighbors. Our results generalize to segregated composites the tunneling-based description of both the percolation and hopping regimes introduced previously for homogeneous disordered systems.

  • Details
  • Metrics
Type
research article
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevE.85.011137
Web of Science ID

WOS:000299953000003

Author(s)
Nigro, B.  
Grimaldi, C.  
Ryser, P.  
Date Issued

2012

Published in
Physical Review E
Volume

85

Article Number

011137

Subjects

Thick-Film Resistors

•

Particle-Size Ratio

•

Hard-Sphere Fluids

•

Continuum Percolation

•

Conductivity

•

Threshold

•

Microstructure

•

Behavior

•

Powders

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LPM  
Available on Infoscience
March 8, 2012
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/78516
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
  • Contact
  • infoscience@epfl.ch

  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Follow us on LinkedIn
  • Follow us on X
  • Follow us on Youtube
AccessibilityLegal noticePrivacy policyCookie settingsEnd User AgreementGet helpFeedback

Infoscience is a service managed and provided by the Library and IT Services of EPFL. © EPFL, tous droits réservés