Enhancement of conductivity due to local disorder in a one-dimensional conductor.

We theoretically investigate electron transport in a one-dimensional conductor with a locally disordered potential by using the non-equilibrium Green's function theory. It is found that, by changing the energy of a site in a one-dimensional atomic chain, the electron conductivity can be larger when the modulated site energy is smaller than that of the other sites. This contradicts the conventional picture that an electron is scattered by the disorder of the potential, because such a scattering process usually causes resistivity. We show that the enhancement of conductivity that seems contradictory to the conventional picture of electron motion is explained by the change of energy of quasi bound states in the conductor.