Discrepant Transport Characteristics Under Anderson Localization At The Two Limits Of Disorder

Anderson localization is reported in both the limits of disorder, namely, at weak disorder in a periodic system and at maximal possible disorder. However, the statistics of the transport, quantified using generalized conductance fluctuations, reveal significant differences between the two regimes. Under maximal possible disorder, the generalized conductance remains below unity for any configuration of the disorder, attesting to the arrested nature of transport. Contrarily, at near-periodic disorder, the distribution of generalized conductance is heavy tailed towards large conductance values, indicating that the overall transport is delocalized. Theoretical results from a model based on the tight-binding approximation, augmented to include open boundaries, are in excellent agreement with experiments, and provide further insights into the transport characteristics.