Thermoelectric properties of correlated double quantum dot system in Coulomb blockade regime

We theoretically study thermoelectric properties of a coupled double quantum dot (DQD) system coupled to normal leads using two impurity Anderson model with intra- as well as interdot Coulomb interactions. A generic formulation, which was earlier developed to study electronic properties (zero bias maximum of differential conductance and interesting partial swapping in Fano phenomena) of DQD system within Coulomb blockade regime for a non-magnetic case, is extended to investigate thermoelectric properties i.e. electrical conductance, thermoelectric power and thermal conductance of the same system, as a function of temperature by varying interdot Coulomb interaction and interdot tunneling. Interdot Coulomb interaction is found to trigger some novel features like crossover in thermoelectric power with temperature in all the configurations (series, parallel and T-shape) and a small peak in thermal conductance toward low temperatures, T≈Γ/10, in series and T-shape configurations, which is found to be missing in case of symmetric parallel configuration. The origin of these novel features is attributed to the interplay of renormalization of energy levels caused by the interdot Coulomb interaction which is interpreted in terms of local density of states and the asymmetry effects related to dot-lead couplings/interference effects.     

Charge oscillations in a double quantum dot in the Coulomb blockade regime

The two-electron dynamics in a symmetric double quantum dot placed in a onstant electric field is considered. It is shown that, despite the Coulomb blockade, interdot electron-density oscillations are possible. In these oscillations, a charge equal to the charge of a single electron is periodically transferred from one quantum dot to the other.     

Coulomb blockade in an open quantum dot

We report the observation of Coulomb blockade in a quantum dot contacted by two quantum point contacts each with a single fully transmitting mode, a system thought to be well described without invoking Coulomb interactions. Below 50 mK we observe a periodic oscillation in the conductance of the dot with gate voltage, corresponding to a residual quantization of charge. From the temperature and magnetic field dependence, we infer the oscillations are mesoscopic Coulomb blockade, a type of Coulomb blockade caused by electron interference in an otherwise open system.     

Coulomb blockade in a lateral triangular small quantum dot

An AlGaAs/GaAs lateral quantum dot of triangular shape with a characteristic size L<100 nm (the smallest size for dots of this type) containing less than ten electrons was studied theoretically and experimentally. Single-electron oscillations of the conductance G of this dot were measured at G<e ₂/h. When going from G?e ₂/h to G≈0.5e ₂/h, a decrease was found not only in the amplitude but also in the period of oscillations. A calculation of the electrostatics demonstrated that this effect is due to a change in the dot size produced by control voltages.     

Coulomb blockade and the thermopower of a suspended quantum dot

On the basis of the 2D electron gas in an AlGaAs/GaAs membrane separated from a wafer, a one-electron transistor is created that operates on the Coulomb blockade effect—a two-barrier structure with a quantum dot. The separation of the sample from the wafer, which has a large dielectric constant, leads to a sharp decrease in the total capacity C of the quantum dot and, as a result, to high charge energy E _C = e ²/C and critical temperature T _C = E _C/k _B ≈ 40 K. The dependence of the conductance of the quantum dot on the driving and gate voltages includes a rhombic structure characteristic of the Coulomb blockade effect. The phonon-drag thermopower is found in this system. This thermopower exhibits an anomalous alternating dependence on the gate voltage and intensity of the phonon flux. Possible mechanisms are proposed for explaining the indicated anomalies in the thermopower.     

Spacing and width of Coulomb blockade peaks in a silicon quantum dot

We present an experimental study of the fluctuations of Coulomb blockade peak positions of a quantum dot. The dot is defined by patterning the two-dimensional electron gas of a silicon MOSFET structure using stacked gates. The ratio of charging energy to single-particle energy is considerably larger than in comparable GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots. The statistical distribution of the conductance peak spacings in the Coulomb blockade regime was found to be unimodal and does not follow the Wigner surmise. The fluctuations of the spacings are much larger than the typical single-particle level spacing and thus clearly contradict the expectation of random matrix theory. Measurements of the natural line width of a set of several adjacent conductance peaks suggest that all of the peaks in the set are dominated by electrons being transported through a single-broad energy level.     

Thermopower of a multilevel quantum dot coupled with leads in Coulomb blockade

We study the thermopower of a multilevel quantum dot which is coupled with the two leads. From our theoretic results, the thermopower of a multilevel quantum dot shows an oscillatory dependence on the gate voltage, which has been found in a lot of experiment data. The Fano effect of the electronic transport through the multilevel quantum dot is also shown as an obvious asymmetric line shape of the thermopower which come from the interference between the resonant and nonresonant multilevel paths of the conductive electrons. In addition, at the higher temperature, to thermopower, not conductance, it is the multilevel that is much easier to do contribution to the Fano effect.     

Dynamics of a wave packet in a system with a quantum dot in the Coulomb blockade regime

The nonstationary problem of electron tunneling through a quantum dot in the Coulomb block-ade regime is studied. The temporal Schrödinger equation is solved and the dynamics of the wave packet in a system consisting of a quantum dot connected to two one-dimensional contacts is investigated. The transmission coefficient is calculated. Dependences of the transmission on the tunneling electron energy are constructed.     

Delocalization energy probed by asymmetry of Coulomb diamond in double dot system

We present results of measurements of the I–V characteristics of a unique parallel double dot where the current flows vertically but the coupling is lateral. Probed by asymmetry of Coulomb diamonds in the standard double-dot honeycomb stability diagram, we are able to discern in what sequence electrons are added in the two dots.     

Optimal control of a charge qubit in a double quantum dot with a Coulomb impurity

We study the efficiency of modulated external electric pulses to produce efficient and fast charge localization transitions in a two-electron double quantum dot. We use a configuration interaction method to calculate the electronic structure of a quantum dot model within the effective mass approximation. The interaction with the electric field is considered within the dipole approximation and optimal control theory is applied to design high-fidelity ultrafast pulses in pristine samples. We assessed the influence of the presence of Coulomb charged impurities on the efficiency and speed of the pulses. A protocol based on a two-step optimization is proposed for preserving both advantages of the original pulse. The processes affecting the charge localization is explained from the dipole transitions of the lowest lying two-electron states, as described by a discrete model with an effective electron-electron interaction.     

Resonance breakdown of a Coulomb blockade due to the mechanical vibrations of a quantum dot

The effect of forced mechanical vibrations of a suspended single-electron transistor on Coulomb-blockade limited electron tunneling through a quantum dot has been studied. The mechanical vibrations of the quantum dot have been shown to result in the Coulomb blockade breakdown, which is manifested by narrow resonance peaks of the transistor conductance as a function of the excitation frequency at the frequencies corresponding to the eigenmodes of the mechanical vibrations. The mechanism of the observed effect presumably associated with the oscillations of the mutual electrical capacitances between the quantum dot and the surrounding electrodes is discussed.     

Negative Coulomb drag in coupled wire and quantum dot system

We measure the Coulomb drag between parallel split-gate quantum wires with a quantum dot embedded in one of the two wires (drive wire). We observe negative Coulomb drag when a Coulomb oscillation peak appears in the drive wire and the conductance of the other wire (drag wire) is slightly below the first plateau. This indicates that correlation holes are dragged in the drag wire by single electron tunneling through the quantum dot in the drive wire. The drag is only promoted in the drag wire near the barrier regions of the dot, and low compressibility of the drag wire is necessary for the negative drag to occur.     

Tunable supercurrent in a parallel double quantum dot system

The supercurrent through an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer containing two parallel quantum dots connected with two superconductor leads is investigated theoretically. The possibility of controlling the supercurrent is explored by tuning the quantum dot energy levels and the total magnetic flux. By tuning the energy levels, both quantum dots can be in the on-resonance or off-resonance states, and thus the optimal modulation of the supercurrent can be achieved. The supercurrent sign does not change by simply varying the quantum dot energy levels. However, by tuning the magnetic flux, the supercurrent can oscillate from positive to negative, which results in the π-junction transition.     

Heat transport through a quantum dot with one-dimensional interacting leads under Coulomb blockade regime

The peculiarities of a low temperature heat transfer through a ballistic quantum dot (a double potential barrier) with interacting leads due to a long-range Coulomb interaction (in the geometrical capacitance approach) are considered. It is found that the thermal conductance K shows periodic peaks as a function of the electrostatic potential of a dot at low temperatures. At the peak maximum it is whereas near the minimum it is . Near the peak maximum the dependence K(T) is essentially nonmonotonic at the temperatures correspondent to the level spacing in the quantum dot. Received 20 October 1999 and Received in final form 20 January 2000     

Photon-assisted tunneling current in a double quantum dot excitonic system

A system of two coupled quantum dots entangled through their interaction with a cavity mode, including Förster and exciton-phonon interactions, exhibits a Josephson-like effect in terms of photon-assisted tunneling current (TC) analogous to supercurrent.     

Transconductance of a double quantum dot system in the Kondo regime

We consider a lateral double-dot system in the Coulomb blockade regime with a single spin-1/2 on each dot, mutually coupled by an antiferromagnetic exchange interaction. Each of the two dots is contacted by two leads. We demonstrate that the voltage across one of the dots will have a profound influence on the current passing through the other dot. Using poor man's scaling, we find that the Kondo effect can lead to a strong enhancement of this transconductance.     

Non-equilibrium scaling properties of a double quantum dot system: Comparison between perturbative renormalization group and flow equation approach

Since the experimental realization of Kondo physics in quantum dots, its far-from-equilibrium properties have generated considerable theoretical interest. This is due to the interesting interplay of non-equilibrium physics and correlation effects in this model, which has now been analyzed using several new theoretical methods that generalize renormalization techniques to non-equilibrium situations. While very good agreement between these methods has been found for the spin-1/2 Kondo model, it is desirable to have a better understanding of their applicability for more complicated impurity models. In this paper the differences and commons between two such approaches, namely the flow equation method out of equilibrium and the frequency-dependent poor man's scaling approach are presented for the non-equilibrium double quantum dot system. This will turn out to be a particularly suitable testing ground while being experimentally interesting in its own right. An outlook is given on the quantum critical behavior of the double quantum dot system and its accessibility with the two methods.     

Coulomb blockade in molecular quantum dots

The rate-equation approach is used to describe sequential tunneling through a molecular junction in the Coulomb blockade regime. Such device is composed of molecular quantum dot (with discrete energy levels) coupled with two metallic electrodes via potential barriers. Based on this model, we calculate nonlinear transport characteristics (conductance-voltage and current-voltage dependences) and compare them with the results obtained within a self-consistent field approach. It is shown that the shape of transport characteristics is determined by the combined effect of the electronic structure of molecular quantum dots and by the Coulomb blockade. In particular, the following phenomena are discussed in detail: the suppression of the current at higher voltages, the charging-induced rectification effect, the charging-generated changes of conductance gap and the temperature-induced as well as broadening-generated smoothing of current steps.     

Phonon-dependent transport through a serially coupled double quantum dot system

Using Keldysh nonequilibrium Green function formalism and mapping a many-body electron–phonon interaction onto a one body problem, the electron transport through a serially coupled double quantum dot system is analyzed. The influence of the electron–phonon interaction, temperature, detuning, and interdot tunneling on the transmission coefficient and current is studied. Our results show that the electron–phonon interaction results in the appearance of the side peaks in the transmission coefficient, whose height is strongly dependent on the phonon temperature. We have also found that the inequality of the electron–phonon interaction strength in two dots gives rise to an asymmetry in the current–voltage characteristic. In addition, the temperature difference between the phonon and electron subsystems results in the reduction of the saturated current and the destruction of the step-like behavior of the current. It is also observed that the detuning can improve the magnitude of the current by compensating the mismatch of the quantum dots energy levels induced by the electron–phonon interaction.