The role of many-particle excitations in Coulomb blockaded transport
Abstract
We discuss the role of electron-electron and electron-phonon correlations in current flow in the Coulomb blockade regime, focusing specifically on non-trivial signatures arising from the breakdown of mean-field theory. By solving transport equations directly in Fock space, we show that electron-electron interactions manifest as gateable excitations experimentally observed in the current-voltage characteristic. While these excitations might merge into an incoherent sum that allows occasional simplifications, a clear separation of excitations into slow 'traps' and fast 'channels' can lead to further novelties such as negative differential resistance, hysteresis and random telegraph signals. Analogous novelties for electron-phonon correlation include the breakdown of commonly anticipated Stokes-anti-Stokes intensities, and an anomalous decrease in phonon population upon heating due to reabsorption of emitted phonons.
- Publication:
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Journal of Physics Condensed Matter
- Pub Date:
- September 2008
- DOI:
- 10.1088/0953-8984/20/37/374109
- arXiv:
- arXiv:0806.3724
- Bibcode:
- 2008JPCM...20.4109M
- Keywords:
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- Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
- E-Print:
- 14 pages 10 figures, Invited article for the special issue on "Conductivity of single molecules and supramolecular architectures", IOP Journal of Physics Condensed matter