In this paper, we study the role of collective vibrational motion in the
phenomenon of electronic energy transfer (EET) along a chain of coupled
electronic dipoles with varying excitation frequencies. Previous experimental
work on EET in conjugated polymer samples has suggested that the common
structural framework of the macromolecule introduces correlations in the energy
gap fluctuations which cause coherent EET. Inspired by these results, we
present a simple model in which a driven nanomechanical resonator mode
modulates the excitation energy of coupled quantum dots and find that this can
indeed lead to an enhancement in the transport of excitations across the
quantum network. Disorder of the on-site energies is a key requirement for this
to occur. We also show that in this solid state system phase information is
partially retained in the transfer process, as experimentally demonstrated in
conjugated polymer samples. Consequently, this mechanism of vibration enhanced
quantum transport might find applications in quantum information transfer of
qubit states or entanglement.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, new material, included references, final
published versio
