No Arabic abstract
We investigate the non-equilibrium transport properties of a disordered molecular nanowire. The nanowire is regarded as a quasi-one-dimensional organic crystal composed of self-assembled molecules. One orbital and a single random energy are assigned to each molecule while the intermolecular coupling does not fluctuate. Consequently, electronic states are expected to be spatially localized. We consider the regime of strong localization, namely, the localization length is smaller than the length of the molecular wire. Electron-vibron interaction, taking place in each single molecule, is also taken into account. We investigate the interplay between disorder and electron-vibron interaction in response to either an applied electric bias or a temperature gradient. To this end, we calculate the electric and heat currents when the nanowire is connected to leads, using the Keldysh non-equilibrium Greens function formalism. At intermediate temperature, scattering by disorder dominates both charge and heat transport. We find that the electron-vibron interaction enhances the effect of the disorder on the transport properties due to the exponential suppression of tunneling.
The theoretical description of modern nanoelectronic devices requires a quantum mechanical treatment and often involves disorder, e.g. form alloys. Therefore, the ab initio theory of transport using non-equilibrium Greens functions is extended to the case of disorder described by the coherent potential approximation. This requires the calculation of non-equilibrium vertex corrections. We implement the vertex corrections in a Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker multiple scattering scheme. In order to verify our implementation and to demonstrate the accuracy and applicability we investigate a system of an iron-cobalt alloy layer embedded in copper. The results obtained with the coherent potential approximation are compared to supercell calculations. It turns out that vertex corrections play an important role for this system.
The resonant-level model represents a paradigmatic quantum system which serves as a basis for many other quantum impurity models. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the non-equilibrium transport near a quantum phase transition in a spinless dissipative resonant-level model, extending earlier work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 216803 (2009)]. A detailed derivation of a rigorous mapping of our system onto an effective Kondo model is presented. A controlled energy-dependent renormalization group approach is applied to compute the non-equilibrium current in the presence of a finite bias voltage V. In the linear response regime V ->0, the system exhibits as a function of the dissipative strength a localized-delocalized quantum transition of the Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) type. We address fundamental issues of the non-equilibrium transport near the quantum phase transition: Does the bias voltage play the same role as temperature to smear out the transition? What is the scaling of the non-equilibrium conductance near the transition? At finite temperatures, we show that the conductance follows the equilibrium scaling for V< T, while it obeys a distinct non-equilibrium profile for V>T. We furthermore provide new signatures of the transition in the finite-frequency current noise and AC conductance via the recently developed Functional Renormalization Group (FRG) approach. The generalization of our analysis to non-equilibrium transport through a resonant level coupled to two chiral Luttinger-liquid leads, generated by the fractional quantum Hall edge states, is discussed. Our work on dissipative resonant level has direct relevance to the experiments in a quantum dot coupled to resistive environment, such as H. Mebrahtu et al., Nature 488, 61, (2012).
Scaling laws and universality play an important role in our understanding of critical phenomena and the Kondo effect. Here we present measurements of non-equilibrium transport through a single-channel Kondo quantum dot at low temperature and bias. We find that the low-energy Kondo conductance is consistent with universality between temperature and bias and characterized by a quadratic scaling exponent, as expected for the spin-1/2 Kondo effect. The non-equilibrium Kondo transport measurements are well-described by a universal scaling function with two scaling parameters.
We consider a quantum dot, affected by a local vibrational mode and contacted to macroscopic leads, in the non-equilibrium steady-state regime. We apply a variational Lang-Firsov transformation and solve the equations of motion of the Green functions in the Kadanoff-Baym formalism up to second order in the interaction coefficients. The variational determination of the transformation parameter through minimization of the thermodynamic potential allows us to calculate the electron/polaron spectral function and conductance for adiabatic to anti-adiabatic phonon frequencies and weak to strong electron-phonon couplings. We investigate the qualitative impact of the quasi-particle renormalization on the inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy signatures and discuss the possibility of a polaron induced negative differential conductance. In the high-voltage regime we find that the polaron level follows the lead chemical potential to enhance resonant transport.
We analyze charge-$e/4$ quasiparticle tunneling between the edges of a point contact in a non-Abelian model of the $ u=5/2$ quantum Hall state. We map this problem to resonant tunneling between attractive Luttinger liquids and use the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method to compute the current through the point contact in the presence of a {it finite voltage difference} between the two edges. We confirm that, as the voltage is decreases, the system is broken into two pieces coupled by electron hopping. In the limits of small and large voltage, we recover the results expected from perturbation theory about the infrared and ultraviolet fixed points. We test our methods by finding the analogous non-equilibrium current through a point contact in a $ u=1/3$ quantum Hall state, confirming the Bethe ansatz solution of the problem.