The crossover between a free magnetic moment phase and a Kondo phase in low-dimensional disordered metals with dilute magnetic impurities is studied. We perform a finite-size scaling analysis of the distribution of the Kondo temperature obtained from a numerical renormalization group calculation of the local magnetic susceptibility for a fixed disorder realization and from the solution of the self-consistent Nagaoka-Suhl equation. We find a sizable fraction of free (unscreened) magnetic moments when the exchange coupling falls below a critical value $J_c$. Between the free moment phase due to Anderson localization and the Kondo-screened phase we find a phase where free moments occur due to the appearance of random local pseudogaps at the Fermi energy whose width and power scale with the elastic scattering rate $1/\tau$.

• Received 23 June 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.247202