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Tunable current circulation in triangular quantum-dot metastructures
Advances in fabrication and control of quantum dots allow the realization of
metastructures that may exhibit novel electrical transport phenomena. Here, we
investigate the electrical current passing through one such metastructure, a
system composed of quantum dots placed at the vertices of a triangle. The wave
natural of quantum particles leads to internal current circulation within the
metastructure in the absence of any external magnetic field. We uncover the
relation between its steady-state total current and the internal circulation.
By calculating the electronic correlations in quantum transport exactly, we
present phase diagrams showing where different types of current circulation can
be found as a function of the correlation strength and the coupling between the
quantum dots. Finally, we show that the regimes of current circulation can be
further enhanced or reduced depending on the local spatial distribution of the
interactions, suggesting a single-particle scattering mechanism is at play even
in the strongly-correlated regime. We suggest experimental realizations of
actual quantum-dot metastructures where our predictions can be directly tested.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, the Supplemental Information is attached at the
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