Theory of metal-non-metal transitions in liquid-metal alloys

Abstract

A technique for calculating the physical properties of liquid-alloy systems that undergo metal-insulator transitions as their concentrations are varied is presented. A simple tight-binding model is used, which includes short-range order and charge transfer self-consistently. The technique is used to investigate the liquid Cs-Au alloy system in detail. The variation of chemical order with concentration and temperature is calculated by minimising the free energy. This allows the calculation of the variation of conductivity with concentration and temperature, and the variation of magnetic susceptibility and Knight shift with concentration. The results are compared to existing experimental data and the agreement is found to be good.