Electron scattering and transport in simple liquid mixtures

Abstract

The theory for electron transport in simple liquids developed by Cohen and Lekner (1967 Phys. Rev. 158 305), is extended to simple liquid mixtures. The focus is on developing benchmark models for binary mixtures of hard-spheres, using the Percus-Yevick model (Lebowitz 1964 Phys. Rev. A 133 895, Hiroike 1969 J. Phys. Soc. Japan 27 1415) to represent the density structure effects. A multi-term solution of Boltzmann’s equation is employed to investigate the effect of the binary mixture structure on hard-sphere electron scattering cross-sections and transport properties, including the drift velocity, mean energy, longitudinal and transverse diffusion coefficients. Benchmark calculations are established for electrons driven out of equilibrium by a range of reduced electric field strengths ( 0.1−100  Td).