Band structure effects of transport properties in icosahedral quasicrystals

Transport properties and optical conductivity are calculated for the crystalline approximant AlMn alloy. The number of electrons at the Fermi energy is very small and, based on the band structure, the anomalously small dc conductivity and temperature dependent thermoelectric power are explained. A model calculation for the two-dimensional Penrose lattice with random phason strain shows that it becomes more conductive than the perfect Penrose lattice. We propose the mechanism of the interband transition by phason randomness and inelastic scattering for the origin of the anomalous conductivity in real quasicrystals.