455 research outputs found
Molecular junctions in the Coulomb blockade regime: rectification and nesting
Quantum transport through single molecules is very sensitive to the strength
of the molecule-electrode contact. Here, we investigate the behavior of a model
molecular junction weakly coupled to external electrodes in the case where
charging effects do play an important role (Coulomb blockade regime). As a
minimal model we consider a molecular junction with two spatially separated
donor and acceptor sites. Depending on their mutual coupling to the electrodes,
the resulting transport observables show well defined features such as
rectification effects in the I-V characteristics and nesting of the stability
diagrams. To be able to accomplish these results, we have developed a theory
which allows to explore the charging regime via the nonequilibrium Green
function formalism parallel to the widely used master equation technique. Our
results, beyond their experimental relevance, offer a transparent framework for
the systematic and modular inclusion of a richer physical phenomenology
Emergence of a negative charging energy in a metallic dot capacitively coupled to a superconducting island
We consider the hybrid setup formed by a metallic dot, capacitively coupled
to a superconducting island S connected to a bulk superconductor by a Josephson
junction. Charge fluctuations in S act as a dynamical gate and overscreen the
electronic repulsion in the metallic dot, producing an attractive interaction
between two additional electrons. As the offset charge of the metallic dot is
increased, the dot charging curve shows positive steps () followed by
negative ones () signaling the occurrence of a negative differential
capacitance. A proposal for experimental detection is given, and potential
applications in nanoelectronics are mentioned.Comment: Revised version, 4 pages, 4 figure
Nonadiabatic Electron Manipulation in Quantum-Dot Arrays
A novel method of coherent manipulation of the electron tunneling in
quantum-dots is proposed, which utilizes the quantum interference in
nonadiabatic double-crossing of the discrete energy levels. In this method, we
need only a smoothly varying gate voltage to manipulate electrons, without a
sudden switching-on and off. A systematic design of a smooth gate-pulse is
presented with a simple analytic formula to drive the two-level electronic
state to essentially arbitrary target state, and numerical simulations for
complete transfer of an electron is shown for a coupled double quantum-dots and
an array of quantum-dots. Estimation of the manipulation-time shows that the
present method can be employed in realistic quantum-dots
Mesoscopic threshold detectors: Telegraphing the size of a fluctuation
We propose a two-terminal method to measure shot noise in mesoscopic systems
based on an instability in the current-voltage characteristic of an on-chip
detector. The microscopic noise drives the instability, which leads to random
switching of the current between two values, the telegraph process. In the
Gaussian regime, the shot noise power driving the instability may be extracted
from the I-V curve, with the noise power as a fitting parameter. In the
threshold regime, the extreme value statistics of the mesoscopic conductor can
be extracted from the switching rates, which reorganize the complete
information about the current statistics in an indirect way, "telegraphing" the
size of a fluctuation. We propose the use of a quantum double dot as a
mesoscopic threshold detector.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, published versio
Effects of different geometries on the conductance, shot noise and tunnel magnetoresistance of double quantum dots
The spin-polarized transport through a coherent strongly coupled double
quantum dot (DQD) system is analyzed theoretically in the sequential and
cotunneling regimes. Using the real-time diagrammatic technique, we analyze the
current, differential conductance, shot noise and tunnel magnetoresistance
(TMR) as a function of both the bias and gate voltages for double quantum dots
coupled in series, in parallel as well as for T-shaped systems. For DQDs
coupled in series, we find a strong dependence of the TMR on the number of
electrons occupying the double dot, and super-Poissonian shot noise in the
Coulomb blockade regime. In addition, for asymmetric DQDs, we analyze transport
in the Pauli spin blockade regime and explain the existence of the leakage
current in terms of cotunneling and spin-flip cotunneling-assisted sequential
tunneling. For DQDs coupled in parallel, we show that the transport
characteristics in the weak coupling regime are qualitatively similar to those
of DQDs coupled in series. On the other hand, in the case of T-shaped quantum
dots we predict a large super-Poissonian shot noise and TMR enhanced above the
Julliere value due to increased occupation of the decoupled quantum dot. We
also discuss the possibility of determining the geometry of the double dot from
transport characteristics. Furthermore, where possible, we compare our results
with existing experimental data on nonmagnetic systems and find qualitative
agreement.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev.
Depletion-mode Quantum Dots in Intrinsic Silicon
We report the fabrication and electrical characterization of depletion-mode
quantum dots in a two-dimensional hole gas (2DHG) in intrinsic silicon. We use
fixed charge in a SiO/AlO dielectric stack to induce a 2DHG at the
Si/SiO interface. Fabrication of the gate structures is accomplished with a
single layer metallization process. Transport spectroscopy reveals regular
Coulomb oscillations with charging energies of 10-15 meV and 3-5 meV for the
few- and many-hole regimes, respectively. This depletion-mode design avoids
complex multilayer architectures requiring precision alignment, and allows to
adopt directly best practices already developed for depletion dots in other
material systems. We also demonstrate a method to deactivate fixed charge in
the SiO/AlO dielectric stack using deep ultraviolet light, which
may become an important procedure to avoid unwanted 2DHG build-up in Si MOS
quantum bits.Comment: Accepted to Applied Physics Letters. 5 pages, 3 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
Spin-polarized transport through weakly coupled double quantum dots in the Coulomb-blockade regime
We analyze cotunneling transport through two quantum dots in series weakly
coupled to external ferromagnetic leads. In the Coulomb blockade regime the
electric current flows due to third-order tunneling, while the second-order
single-barrier processes have indirect impact on the current by changing the
occupation probabilities of the double dot system. We predict a zero-bias
maximum in the differential conductance, whose magnitude is conditioned by the
value of the inter-dot Coulomb interaction. This maximum is present in both
magnetic configurations of the system and results from asymmetry in cotunneling
through different virtual states. Furthermore, we show that tunnel
magnetoresistance exhibits a distinctively different behavior depending on
temperature, being rather independent of the value of inter-dot correlation.
Moreover, we find negative TMR in some range of the bias voltage.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev.
Phonon Rabi-assisted tunneling in diatomic molecules
We study electronic transport in diatomic molecules connected to metallic
contacts in the regime where both electron-electron and electron-phonon
interactions are important. We find that the competition between these
interactions results in unique resonant conditions for interlevel transitions
and polaron formation: the Coulomb repulsion requires additional energy when
electrons attempt phonon-assisted interlevel jumps between fully or partially
occupied levels. We apply the equations of motion approach to calculate the
electronic Green's functions. The density of states and conductance through the
system are shown to exhibit interesting Rabi-like splitting of Coulomb blockade
peaks and strong temperature dependence under the it interacting resonant
conditions.Comment: Updated version, 5 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. B
on 9/1
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