For decades, it has been widely believed that electrons move most efficiently in materials that are clean and highly ordered. Much like water flowing more easily through a smooth pipe, conventional wisdom has held that electrical transport improves as a material’s internal structure becomes more perfectly arranged. However, a recent study shows that the opposite can also be true. A research team at POSTECH in South Korea has discovered that engineered disorder can actually enhance electron transport.

The work was conducted by Prof. Hyungyu Jin of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology), Dr. Sang Jun Park (currently a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute for Materials Science, NIMS, Japan), Prof. Hyun-Woo Lee of the Department of Physics at POSTECH, and Ph.D. student Hojun Lee.

Their findings are published in Physical Review Letters.