Electronic transport through a periodic array of quantum-dot rings

Using the tight-binding approximation and the transfer matrix method, this paper studies the electronic transport properties through a periodic array of quantum-dot (QD) rings threaded by a magnetic flux. It demonstrates that the even--odd parity of the QD number in a single ring and the number of the QD rings in the array play a crucial role in the electron transmission. For a single QD ring, the resonance and antiresonance transmission depend not only on the applied magnetic flux but also on the difference between the number of QDs on the two arms of the ring. For an array of QD rings, the transmission properties are related not only to the even--odd parity of the number $N_{0}$ of QDs in the single ring but also to the even--odd parity of the ring number $N$ in the array. When the incident electron energy is aligned with the site energy, for the array of $N$ rings with $N_{0}={\rm odd}$ the antiresonance transmission cannot occur but the resonance transmission may occur and the transmission spectrum has $N$ resonance peaks ($N-1$ resonance peaks) in a period for $N={\rm odd}$ (for $N={\rm even}$). For the array of $N$ rings with $N_{0}={\rm even}$ the transmission properties depend on the flux threading the ring and the QD number on one arm of the ring. These results may be helpful in designing QD devices.