Sum rule for transport in a Luttinger liquid with long range interaction in the presence of an impurity

We show that the non-linear dc transport in a Luttinger liquid with interaction of finite range in the presence of an impurity is governed by a sum rule which causes the charging energy to vanish.Comment: 5 pages, RevTeX, 1 figure, to be published in Europhysics Letter

A pure-carbon ring transistor: The role of topology and structure

We report results on the rectification properties of a carbon nanotube (CNT) ring transistor, contacted by CNT leads, whose novel features have been recently communicated by Watanabe et al. [Appl. Phys. Lett. 78, 2928 (2001)]. This paper contains results which are validated by the experimental observations. Moreover, we report on additional features of the transmission of this ring device which are associated with the possibility of breaking the lead inversion symmetry. The linear conductance displays a "chessboard"-like behavior alternated with anomalous zero-lines which should be directly observable in experiments. We are also able to discriminate in our results structural properties (quasi-onedimensional confinement) from pure topological effects (ring configuration), thus helping to gain physical intuition on the rich ring phenomenology.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

Transport through a one-dimensional quantum dot

We examine the effects of long-range interactions in a quantum wire with two impurities. We employ the bosonization technique and derive an effective action for the system. The effect of the long-range interaction on the charging energy and spectral properties of the island formed by the impurities and the linear transport is discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Vibrational Instabilities in Resonant Electron Transport through Single-Molecule Junctions

We analyze various limits of vibrationally coupled resonant electron transport in single-molecule junctions. Based on a master equation approach, we discuss analytic and numerical results for junctions under a high bias voltage or weak electronic-vibrational coupling. It is shown that in these limits the vibrational excitation of the molecular bridge increases indefinitely, i.e. the junction exhibits a vibrational instability. Moreover, our analysis provides analytic results for the vibrational distribution function and reveals that these vibrational instabilities are related to electron-hole pair creation processes.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figure

Disorder and dephasing effect on electron transport through conjugated molecular wires in molecular junctions

Understanding electron transport processes in molecular wires connected between contacts is a central focus in the field of molecular electronics. Especially, the dephasing effect causing tunneling-to-hopping transition has great importance from both applicational and fundamental points of view. We analyzed coherent and incoherent electron transmission through conjugated molecular wires by means of density-functional tight-binding theory within the D'Amato-Pastawski model. Our approach can study explicitly the structure/transport relationship in molecular junctions in a dephasing environmental condition using only single dephasing parameter. We investigated the length dependence and the influence of thermal fluctuations on transport and reproduced the well-known tunneling-to-hopping transition. This approach will be a powerful tool for the interpretation of recent conductance measurements of molecular wires.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Electrical transport through a mechanically gated molecular wire

A surface-adsorbed molecule is contacted with the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) at a pre-defined atom. On tip retraction, the molecule is peeled off the surface. During this experiment, a two-dimensional differential conductance map is measured on the plane spanned by the bias voltage and the tip-surface distance. The conductance map demonstrates that tip retraction leads to mechanical gating of the molecular wire in the STM junction. The experiments are compared with a detailed ab initio simulation. We find that density functional theory (DFT) in the local density approximation (LDA) describes the tip-molecule contact formation and the geometry of the molecular junction throughout the peeling process with predictive power. However, a DFT-LDA-based transport simulation following the non-equilibrium Green's functions (NEGF) formalism fails to describe the behavior of the differential conductance as found in experiment. Further analysis reveals that this failure is due to the mean-field description of electron correlation in the local density approximation. The results presented here are expected to be of general validity and show that, for a wide range of common wire configurations, simulations which go beyond the mean-field level are required to accurately describe current conduction through molecules. Finally, the results of the present study illustrate that well-controlled experiments and concurrent ab initio transport simulations that systematically sample a large configuration space of molecule-electrode couplings allow the unambiguous identification of correlation signatures in experiment.Comment: 31 pages, 10 figure

L’incerto bilanciamento tra esigenze processuali, diritti dell’imputato e libertà di cronaca: a proposito della sentenza Bédat c. Svizzera (Corte EDU, Grande Camera, 29 marzo 2016)

The contribution addresses the ECtHR's decision in B\ue9dat v. Switzerland, in which the Court intervenes on the thorny issue of the balance between freedom of information and the needs of justice's administration. On one side the Court confirms the role of the presumption of innocence and the right to private life; on the other it raises several questions and some concerns about the uncertainty of the keyconcepts used (public interest and responsible press). Moreover the Court addresses critically the trend of overlapping different aspects, namely the guarantees of the fair trial and the rights relating to personality

Analytical calculation of the excess current in the OTBK theory

We present an analytical derivation of the excess current in Josephson junctions within the Octavio-Tinkham-Blonder-Klapwijk theory for both symmetric and asymmetric barrier strengths. We confirm the result found numerically by Flensberg et al. for equal barriers [Phys. Rev. B 38, 8707 (1988)], including the prediction of negative excess current for low transparencies, and we generalize it for differing barriers. Our analytical formulae provide for convenient fitting of experimental data, also in the less studied, but practically relevant case of the barrier asymmetry.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Superconductor Science and Technolog