Turnstile pumping through an open quantum wire

We use a non-Markovian generalized master equation (GME) to describe the time-dependent charge transfer through a parabolically confined quantum wire of a finite length coupled to semi-infinite quasi two-dimensional leads. The quantum wire and the leads are in a perpendicular external magnetic field. The contacts to the left and right leads depend on time and are kept out of phase to model a quantum turnstile of finite size. The effects of the driving period of the turnstile, the external magnetic field, the character of the contacts, and the chemical potential bias on the effectiveness of the charge transfer of the turnstile are examined, both in the absence and in the presence of the magnetic field. The interplay between the strength of the coupling and the strength of the magnetic field is also discussed. We observe how the edge states created in the presence of the magnetic field contribute to the pumped charge.Comment: RevTeX (pdf-LaTeX), 9 pages with 12 included jpg figure

Controlled dephasing in single-dot Aharonov-Bohm interferometers

We study the Fano effect and the visibility of the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations for a mesoscopic interferometer with an embedded quantum dot in the presence of a nearby second dot. When the electron-electron interaction between the two dots is considered the nearby dot acts as a charge detector. We compute the currents through the interferometer and detector within the Keldysh formalism and the self-energy of the non-equilibrium Green functions is found up to the second order in the interaction strength. The current formula contains a correction to the Landauer-B\"{uttiker} formula. Its contribution to transport and dephasing is discussed. As the bias applied on the detector is increased, the amplitude of both the Fano resonance and Aharonov-Bohm oscillations are considerably reduced due to controlled dephasing. This result is explained by analyzing the behavior of the imaginary part of the self-energy as a function of energy and bias. We investigate as well the role of the ring-dot coupling. Our theoretical results are consistent to the experimental observation of Buks {\it et al.} [Nature {\bf 391}, 871 (1998)].Comment: 24 pages, 8 figure

Quantum turnstile operation of single-molecule magnets

The time-dependent transport through single-molecule magnets coupled to magnetic or non-magnetic electrodes is studied in the framework of the generalized master equation method. We investigate the transient regime induced by the periodic switching of the source and drain contacts. If the electrodes have opposite magnetizations the quantum turnstile operation allows the stepwise writing of intermediate excited states. In turn, the transient currents provide a way to read these states. Within our approach we take into account both the uniaxial and transverse anisotropy. The latter may induce additional quantum tunneling processes which affect the efficiency of the proposed read-and-write scheme. An equally weighted mixture of molecular spin states can be prepared if one of the electrodes is ferromagnetic.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure

Resonant and coherent transport through Aharonov-Bohm interferometers with coupled quantum dots

A detailed description of the tunneling processes within Aharonov-Bohm (AB) rings containing two-dimensional quantum dots is presented. We show that the electronic propagation through the interferometer is controlled by the spectral properties of the embedded dots and by their coupling with the ring. The transmittance of the interferometer is computed by the Landauer-B\"uttiker formula. Numerical results are presented for an AB interferometer containing two coupled dots. The charging diagrams for a double-dot interferometer and the Aharonov Bohm oscillations are obtained, in agreement with the recent experimental results of Holleitner {\it et al}. [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 87}, 256802 (2001)] We identify conditions in which the system shows Fano line shapes. The direction of the asymetric tail depends on the capacitive coupling and on the magnetic field. We discuss our results in connection with the experiments of Kobayashi {\it et al} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 88}, 256806 (2002)] in the case of a single dot.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figure