THE PECULIARITIES OF C-AXIS TRANSPORT IN THE NORMAL-PHASE OF HIGH-T-CMATERIALS

The c-axis transport of impure layered metals is discussed in the case s of clean and dirty limits. The crossover from the Drude regime to th e hopping regime in transverse conductivity is treated qualitatively a s the change from anisotropic diffusion to Zener oscillations of elect rons. It is shown that the superconducting fluctuations in strongly an isotropic layered superconductors substantially affect the transport c oefficients above the transition temperature. In a wide temperature ra nge above T-c the main effect of these fluctuations is to create a vir tual gap in the electron spectrum, causing an increase of transverse e lectric and heat resistivities and decrease of thermoelectric power. T his effect turns out to be specially competitive due to the suppressio n of paraconductivity along the c-axis direction due to the hopping ch aracter of electron motion.