Flux-dependent transport through an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer with embedded multiple coupled quantum dots

The electron transport through an Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interferometer with embedded four coupled quantum dots (QDs) is studied with the Green's function technique. The QDs are coupled to each other by the hopping integral tc. Two among them connect with the left lead and the other two with the right lead by the tunneling matrix element T which incorporates the effects of the applied magnetic field φ. The linear conductance spectra swap between the molecular levels and the atomic states by adjusting tc and T. Fano effect appears when the electrons tunnel through different channels contributed by different QDs energy levels, and the Fano resonance peaks split for large tc. The Fano factor can be manipulated by tc, T, φ, and the QD energy levels.     

Charge dynamics effects in conductance through a large semi-open quantum dot

Fano lineshapes in resonant transmission in a quantum dot imply interference between localized and extended states. The influence of the charge accumulated at the localized levels, which screens the external gate voltage acting on the conduction channel is investigated. The modified Fano q parameter and the resonant conduction is derived starting from a microscopic Hamiltonian. The latest experiments on ‘charge sensing’ and ‘Coulomb modified Fano sensing’ compare well with the results of the present model.     

Coherent population transfer in a chain of tunnel coupled quantum dots

We consider the dynamics of a single electron in a chain of tunnel coupled quantum dots, exploring the formal analogies of this system with some of the laser-driven multilevel atomic or molecular systems studied by Bruce W. Shore and collaborators over the last 30 years. In particular, we describe two regimes for achieving complete coherent transfer of population in such a multistate system. In the first regime, by carefully arranging the coupling strengths, the flow of population between the states of the system can be made periodic in time. In the second regime, by employing a “counterintuitive” sequence of couplings, the coherent population trapping eigenstate of the system can be rotated from the initial to the final desired state, which is an equivalent of the STIRAP technique for atoms or molecules. Our results may be useful in future quantum computation schemes.     

Ac-cotunneling through an interacting quantum dot in a magnetic field

We analyze inelastic cotunneling through an interacting quantum dot subject to an ambient magnetic field in the weak tunneling regime under a non-adiabatic time-dependent bias-voltage. Our results clearly exhibit photon-assisted satellites and an overall suppression of differential conductance with increasing driving amplitude, which is consistent with experiments. We also predict a zero-anomaly in differential conductance under an appropriate driving frequency.     

ac field-induced Fano resonances in a parallel-coupled double quantum dot system

The effects of an ac electric field on the Fano resonance in a parallel-coupled double quantum dot system are investigated theoretically. The field can induce the photon-assisted Fano resonances for both symmetrical and asymmetrical parallel configurations. The magnitude and position of the photon-assisted Fano peak can be tuned by the ac field strength and frequency, respectively. Furthermore, the Fano resonance can appear with increasing the field frequency for both the symmetrical and asymmetrical configurations. This provides an efficient mechanism to control the Fano resonance. The photon-electron pumping effects for the symmetrical and asymmetrical cases are also studied in the weak- and strong-coupling regime.     

Dynamical properties of mesoscopic ring coupled to an ac driven electron reservoir

We investigate a one-dimensional mesoscopic ring with a constant magnetic flux coupled to an electron reservoir which is driven by an oscillating potential. There is time-dependent tunneling current between the ring and reservoir with a zero net value. The persistent current in the ring is also time-dependent due to the driving potential. The time-averaged persistent current is related to electron transfer between two coupled parts which is associated with the Fermi energy and side bands of the reservoir.     

Electron transport in carbon nanotube quantum dots in an axial magnetic field

The quantum conductance of the quantum dots (QDs) made of two kinds of primary carbon nanotubes (CNTs), i.e., armchair and zigzag CNTs, threaded by an axial magnetic field, has been studied by using the tight binding approximation and constant interaction model. It is found that under increasing axial magnetic field, each conductance shell of the zigzag CNT-QDs could split into two groups with each group of two peaks moving up or down, respectively. And the up- and down-moving two peaks would re-group with other two peaks, down- and up-moving, in the neighboring shell, forming a new four-peak shell, and then re-splitting, re-grouping again due to the Aharonov-Bohm effect, which is in agreement with those of experiments. But, in contrast, the conductance shells of the armchair CNT-QDs do not split by the magnetic field. Our subsequent theoretical studies show further that the above phenomena, i.e., the conductance shell-splitting, re-grouping, and re-splitting again with increasing the magnetic field exist in all the CNT-QDs except for the armchair one.     

Voltage-controllable spin-polarized transport through parallel-coupled double quantum dots with Rashba spin-orbit interaction

A spin device, consisting of parallel-coupled double quantum dots and three normal metal leads, is proposed to realize spin-polarized current without the help of magnetic field and magnetic material. Based on the Keldysh nonequilibrium Green function technique and equation of motion method, the spin-dependent current formula in each lead is derived. It is shown that not only a fully polarized current but also a tunable pure spin current can be obtained by modulating the structure parameters, strength of Rashba spin-orbit interaction and bias voltages properly. It further demonstrates the dependence of the spin-polarized current on the strength of the Rashba spin-orbit interaction.     

Transport through a quantum dot subject to spin and charge bias

Spin and charge transport through a quantum dot coupled to external nonmagnetic leads is analyzed theoretically in terms of the non-equilibrium Green function formalism based on the equation of motion method. The dot is assumed to be subject to spin and charge bias, and the considerations are focused on the Kondo effect in spin and charge transport. It is shown that the differential spin conductance as a function of spin bias reveals a typical zero-bias Kondo anomaly which becomes split when either magnetic field or charge bias are applied. Significantly different behavior is found for mixed charge/spin conductance. The influence of electron-phonon coupling in the dot on tunneling current as well as on both spin and charge conductance is also analyzed.     

Spin Pumping from a Quantum Dot in the Presence of Decoherence

We study the pumped spin current of an interacting quantum dot tunnel coupled to a single lead in the presence of electron spin resonance （ESR） field. The spin decoherence in the dot is included by the Bffttiker approach. Using the nonequilibrium Green＇s function technique, we show that ESR-induced spin flip can generate finite spin current with no charge transport. Both the Coulomb interaction and spin decoherence decrease the amplitude of spin current. The dependence of pumped spin current on the intensity and frequency of ESR field, and the spin decoherence is discussed.     

Kondo and Coulomb Interaction Effects in Spin-Polarized Transport through Double Quantum Dots

By means of the slave-boson mean-field approximation, we theoretically investigate the Kondo and Coulomb interaction effects in spin-polarized transport through two coupled quantum dots coupled to two ferromagnetic leads by the Anderson Hamiltonian. The density of states is calculated in the Kondo regime for the effect of the interdot Coulomb repulsion with both parallel and antiparallel lead-polarization alignments. Our results reveal that the interdot Coulomb interaction between quantum dots greatly influence the density of states of the dots.     

Charge transport in boron-doped nano MOSFETs: Towards single-dopant electronics

We investigate the hole transport in p-channel field-effect transistors doped with boron, at low temperatures (6-28 K). In transistors with a relatively large dimension, we observe the acceptor-mediated hopping and carrier freezeout, both of which are strongly influenced by the gate bias. In nanoscale transistors, these features turn into single-charge tunneling, i.e., the trapping/detrapping of single holes by/from individual acceptors. The statistics of the appearance of the modulation in a few ten samples indicates that the number of acceptors is small, or even just one, indicating that what we have observed is single-charge-transistor operation by a single-acceptor quantum dot.     

Single Impurity Scattering in One-Channel Spinless Luttinger Liquid

Using bosonization and phase shift representation, we rigorously treat backward scattering of electrons on an impurity in a one-dimensional interacting electronic system, and demonstrate that correlation exponents of the system depend on a phase shift induced by the backward scattering, and usual exponent duality of the correlation functions between ultraviolet and infrared fixed points comes from the phase shift dependence of the correlation exponents. Finally, we study the tunnelling conductance of the system at zero temperature and obtain a modified Landauer-Bütiker formula.     

Antiresonance of electron tunneling through a four-quantum-dot ring with two side-coupled quantum dots

Making use of the equation of motion method and Keldysh Green function technique, we obtain the current formula for a two-terminal four-quantum-dot-ring with two side-coupled quantum dots under a DC bias voltage. Antiresonance and resonance of electron tunneling is studied by numerical calculations. Only when the quantum dots in the ring has the same single electron energy level with that of the side-coupled quantum dots, i.e. and both side-coupling are turned on at the same time, the antiresonance appear exactly at ε₀.     

Flux-dependent anti-crossing of resonances in parallel non-coupled double quantum dots

We present novel resonant phenomena through parallel non-coupled double quantum dots (QDs) embedded in each arm of an Aharonov-Bohm (AB) ring with magnetic flux passing through its center. The electron transmission through this AB ring with each QD formed by two short-range potential barriers is calculated using a scattering matrix at each junction and a transfer matrix in each arm. We show that as the magnetic flux modulates, a distortion of the grid-like square transmission occurs and an anti-crossing of the resonances appears. Hence, the modulation of magnetic flux in this system can have an equivalent effect to the control of inter-dot coupling between the two QDs.     

A quantum pseudodot system with a two-dimensional pseudoharmonic potential

We investigate the energy spectrum and the corresponding wave functions of an electron confined by a pseudoharmonic potential both including harmonic dot and antidot potentials in the presence of a strong magnetic field together with an Aharonov-Bohm flux field. Exact solutions for the energy levels and wave functions are found for this exactly soluble system. These are all tested under various conditions and also are compared with other works found in the literature. Further, we discuss the related energy spectrum in terms of special values of the proposed pseudoharmonic potential, AB field and magnetic field as a function of magnetic quantum number and magnetic field.     

Quantum wave packet revival in two-dimensional circular quantum wells with position-dependent mass

We study quantum wave packet revivals on two-dimensional infinite circular quantum wells (CQWs) and circular quantum dots with position-dependent mass (PDM) envisaging a possible experimental realization. We consider CQWs with radially varying mass, addressing particularly the cases where M(r)∝rw with w=1,2, or −2. The two PDM Hamiltonians currently allowed by theory were analyzed and we were able to construct a strong theoretical argument favoring one of them.     

Current and Shot Noise in a Quantum Dot Coupled to Ferromagnetic Leads in the Kondo Regime

Using the Keldysh nonequilibrium Green function technique, we study the current and shot noise spectroscopy of an interacting quantum dot coupled to two ferromagnetic leads with different polarizations in the Kondo regime. General formulas of current and shot noise are obtained, which can be applied in both the parallel （P） and antiparallel （AP） alignment cases. For large polarization values, it is revealed that the behaviour of differential conductance and shot noise are completely different for spin up and spin down configurations in the P alignment case. However, the differential conductance and shot noise have similar properties for different spin configurations in the P alignment case with the small polarization value and in the AP alignment case with any polarization value.     

Single-electron quantum dots in silicon MOS structures

We present experimental results for two types of quantum dots, which are embedded within a silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor structure. Evidence is found for single-electron charging at low temperature, and for an asymmetric shape of the dot. First results of simulations of these dots are presented. Received: 14 April 2000 / Accepted: 17 April 2000 / Published online: 6 September 2000     

Fano Resonance in Landau Fermi and Luttinger Liquids

With a two-channel model, we study the influence of temperature, external voltage and magnetic flux on the line shape of the Fano resonance, and show that in the Luttinger liquid case, the background transmittance and the asymmetric parameter depend strongly on the temperature and external voltage, while for the Landau Fermi liquid case they are nearly independent of these parameters in the low energy region. Moreover, we demonstrate that the asymmetric parameter changes periodically with an external magnetic flux, which is consistent with the recent experimental data.