Disorder to chaos transition in the conductance distribution of corrugated waveguides

We perform a detailed numerical study of the distribution of conductances $P(T)$ for quasi-one-dimensional corrugated waveguides as a function of the corrugation complexity (from rough to smooth). We verify the universality of $P(T)$ in both, the diffusive ($⟨T\mathrm{\mid }\mathrm{\mid }>⟩1$) and the localized ($\bra T \ket\ll 1$)transportregimes\mathrm{.}However,atthecrossoverregime($\bra T \ket \sim 1$),weobservethat$P(T)$ evolves from the surface-disorder to the bulk-disorder theoretical predictions for decreasing complexity in the waveguide boundaries. We explain this behavior as a transition from disorder to deterministic chaos; since, in the limit of smooth boundaries the corrugated waveguides are, effectively, linear chains of chaotic cavities.