▎ 摘　　要

We present a method to treat scattering of electrons with atomic roughness at interfaces, surfaces, and edges on nanometer-scale structures based on local empirical pseudopotentials. This approach merges the computational advantages of macroscopic models based on the shift of a phenomenological "barrier potential," with the physical accuracy of models based on modifications of the atomic configuration at the interface/surface/edge. We illustrate the method by considering the dependence of the scattering matrix element on the confinement (inversion) field in free-standing H-terminated Si inversion layers, on the thickness in similarly H-terminated thin-Si bodies, on the diameter of free-standing [100] cylindrical Si nanowires, and on the width of armchair-edge graphene nanoribbons. For these latter structures, we find extremely large scattering rates, whose magnitude - ultimately due to the chirality dependence of the bandgap - renders perturbation theory invalid and prevents us from drawing quantitative conclusions about transport properties. Yet, they show clearly the dominant role played by line-edge roughness in controlling electronic transport in these structures, in agreement with suggestions that transport in narrow and rough ribbons does not occur via extended Bloch states. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3650249]