We investigate charge pumping in carbon nanotube quantum dots driven by the electric field of a surface acoustic wave. We find that at small driving amplitudes, the pumped current reverses polarity as the conductance is tuned through a Coulomb blockade peak using a gate electrode. We study the behavior as a function of wave amplitude, frequency and direction and develop a model in which our results can be understood as resulting from adiabatic charge redistribution between the leads and quantum dots on the nanotube.
We demonstrate charge pumping in semiconducting carbon nanotubes by a traveling potential wave. From the observation of pumping in the nanotube insulating state we deduce that transport occurs by packets of charge being carried along by the wave. By tuning the potential of a side gate, transport of either electron or hole packets can be realized. Prospects for the realization of nanotube based single-electron pumps are discussed.
We demonstrate single-electron pumping in a gate-defined carbon nanotube double quantum dot. By periodic modulation of the potentials of the two quantum dots we move the system around charge triple points and transport exactly one electron or hole per cycle. We investigate the pumping as a function of the modulation frequency and amplitude and observe good current quantization up to frequencies of 18 MHz where rectification effects cause the mechanism to break down.
Low-temperature transport spectroscopy measurements on a suspended few-hole carbon nanotube quantum dot are presented, showing a gate-dependent harmonic excitation spectrum which, strikingly, occurs in the Coulomb blockade regime. The quantized excitation energy corresponds to the scale expected for longitudinal vibrations of the nanotube. The electronic transport processes are identified as cotunnel-assisted sequential tunneling, resulting from non-equilibrium occupation of the mechanical mode. They appear only above a high-bias threshold at the scale of electronic nanotube excitations. We di…
We observe two-fold shell filling in the spectra of closed one-dimensional quantum dots formed in single-wall carbon nanotubes. Its signatures include a bimodal distribution of addition energies, correlations in the excitation spectra for different electron number, and alternation of the spins of the added electrons. This provides a contrast with quantum dots in higher dimensions, where such spin pairing is absent. We also see indications of an additional fourfold periodicity indicative of K-K' subband shells. Our results suggest that the absence of shell filling in most isolated nanotube dots…
We perform scanning gate microscopy on individual suspended carbon nanotube quantum dots. The size and position of the quantum dots can be visually identified from the concentric high conductance rings. For the ultra clean devices used in this study, two new effects are clearly identified. Electrostatic screening creates non-overlapping multiple sets of Coulomb rings from a single quantum dot. In double quantum dots, by changing the tip voltage, the interactions between the quantum dots can be tuned from the weak to strong coupling regime.
We report fast, simultaneous charge sensing and transport measurements of gate-defined carbon nanotube quantum dots. Aluminum radio frequency single electron transistors (rf-SETs) capacitively coupled to the nanotube dot provide single-electron charge sensing on microsecond timescales. Simultaneously, rf reflectometry allows fast measurement of transport through the nanotube dot. Charge stability diagrams for the nanotube dot in the Coulomb blockade regime show extended Coulomb diamonds into the high-bias regime, as well as even-odd filling effects, revealed in charge sensing data.
We present a simple technique which uses a self-aligned oxide etch to suspend individual single-wall carbon nanotubes between metallic electrodes. This enables one to compare the properties of a particular nanotube before and after suspension, as well as to study transport in suspended tubes. As an example of the utility of the technique, we study quantum dots in suspended tubes, finding that their capacitances are reduced owing to the removal of the dielectric substrate.
We report the experimental realization of double quantum dots in single-walled carbon nanotubes. The device consists of a nanotube with source and drain contact, and three additional top-gate electrodes in between. We show that, by energizing these top-gates, it is possible to locally gate a nanotube, to create a barrier, or to tune the chemical potential of a part of the nanotube. At low temperatures we find (for three different devices) that in certain ranges of top-gate voltages our device acts as a double quantum dot, evidenced by the typical honeycomb charge stability pattern.
We propose schemes for generating spin currents into a semiconductor by adiabatic or non-adiabatic pumping of electrons through interacting quantum dots. The appeal of such schemes lies in the possibility to tune the pumping characteristics via gate voltages that control the properties of the quantum dot. The calculations are based on a systematic perturbation expansion in the tunnel-coupling strength and the pumping frequency, expressed within a diagrammatic real-time technique. Special focus is put on the possibility of pure spin pumping, i.e., of pumping spin currents without charge current…
We present a general formalism to study adiabatic pumping through interacting quantum dots. We derive a formula that relates the pumped charge to the local, instantaneous Green function of the dot. This formula is then applied to the infinite-U Anderson model both for weak and strong tunnel-coupling strengths.
We explore electronic transport in a nanotube quantum dot strongly coupled with vibrations and weakly with leads and the thermal environment. We show that the recent observation of anomalous conductance signatures in single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) quantum dots can be understood quantitatively in terms of current driven `hot phonons' that are strongly correlated with electrons. Using rate equations in the many-body configuration space for the joint electron-phonon distribution, we argue that the variations are indicative of strong electron-phonon coupling requiring an analysis beyond the…
We demonstrate gate control of the electronic g-tensor in single and double quantum dots formed along a bend in a carbon nanotube. From the dependence of the single-dot excitation spectrum on magnetic field magnitude and direction, we extract spin-orbit coupling, valley coupling, spin and orbital magnetic moments. Gate control of the g-tensor is measured using the splitting of the Kondo peak in conductance as a sensitive probe of Zeeman energy. In the double quantum dot regime, the magnetic field dependence of the position of cotunneling lines in the two dimensional charge stability diagram is…
Single-parameter adiabatic charge pumping, induced by a nearby radio-frequency antenna, is achieved in suspended carbon nanotubes close to the mechanical resonance. The charge pumping is due to an important dynamic adjustment of the oscillating motion to the antenna signal and it is different from the mechanism active in the two-parameter pumping. Finally, the second harmonic oscillator response shows an interesting relationship with the first harmonic that should be experimentally observed.
We report on low temperature measurements in a fully tunable carbon nanotube double quantum dot. A new fabrication technique has been used for the top-gates in order to avoid covering the whole nanotube with an oxide layer as in previous experiments. The top-gates allow us to form single dots, control the coupling between them and we observe four-fold shell filling. We perform inelastic transport spectroscopy via the excited states in the double quantum dot, a necessary step towards the implementation of new microwave-based experiments.
We report low-temperature transport experiments on single-wall nanotubes with metallic leads of varying contact quality, ranging from weak tunneling to almost perfect transmission. In the weak tunneling regime, where Coulomb blockade dominates, the nanotubes act as one-dimensional quantum dots. For stronger coupling to the leads the conductance can be strongly enhanced by inelastic cotunneling and the Kondo effect. For open contacts Coulomb blockade is completely suppressed, and the low-temperature conductance remains generally high, although we often see distinct dips in the conductance versu…
We investigate the electronic transport through a suspended carbon-nanotube quantum dot. In the presence of a magnetic field perpendicular to the nanotube and a nearby metallic gate, two forces act on the electrons: the Laplace and the electrostatic force. They both induce coupling between the electrons and the mechanical transverse oscillation modes. We find that the difference between the two mechanisms appears in the cotunneling current.
We present quantum transport measurements of interacting parallel quantum dots formed in the strands of a carbon nanotube rope. In this molecular quantum dot system, transport is dominated by one quantum dot, while additional resonances from parallel side dots appear, which exhibit a weak gate coupling. This differential gating effect provides a tunability of the quantum dot system with only one gate electrode and provides control over the carbon nanotube strand that carries the current. By tuning the system to different states we use quantum transport as a spectroscopic tool to investigate th…
We report the fabrication details and low-temperature characteristics of the first carbon nanotube (CNT) quantum dots on flakes of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) as substrate. We demonstrate that CNTs can be grown on hBN by standard chemical vapor deposition and that standard scanning electron microscopy imaging and lithography can be employed to fabricate nanoelectronic structures when using optimized parameters. This proof of concept paves the way to more complex devices on hBN, with more predictable and reproducible characteristics and electronic stability.
We study non-adiabatic two-parameter charge and spin pumping through a single-level quantum dot with Coulomb interaction. For the limit of weak tunnel coupling and in the regime of pumping frequencies up to the tunneling rates, $Ω\lesssim Γ/\hbar$, we perform an exact resummation of contributions of all orders in the pumping frequency. As striking non-adiabatic signatures, we find frequency-dependent phase shifts in the charge and spin currents, which allow for an effective single-parameter pumping as well as pure spin without charge currents.
We propose a scheme for coherent rotation of the valley isospin of a single electron confined in a carbon nanotube quantum dot. The scheme exploits the ubiquitous atomic disorder of the nanotube crystal lattice, which induces time-dependent valley mixing as the confined electron is pushed back and forth along the nanotube axis by an applied ac electric field. Using experimentally determined values for the disorder strength we estimate that valley Rabi oscillations with a period on the nanosecond timescale are feasible. The valley resonance effect can be detected in the electric current through…
We consider the photon-assisted tunneling (PAT) and the Landau-Zener-Stueckelberg (LZS) interference for double quantum dots induced electrostatically along a semiconducting carbon nanotube. An atomistic tight-binding approach and the time-dependent configuration interaction method are employed for description of the systems of a few confined electrons and holes. We reproduce the patterns of the LZS interference recently observed for the quantum double dots describing transport across hole-localized states. Moreover, we indicate that for charge configurations for which the ground-state is Paul…
We study non-adiabatic charge pumping through single-level quantum dots taking into account Coulomb interactions. We show how a truncated set of equations of motion can be propagated in time by means of an auxiliary-mode expansion. This formalism is capable of treating the time-dependent electronic transport for arbitrary driving parameters. We verify that the proposed method describes very precisely the well-known limit of adiabatic pumping through quantum dots without Coulomb interactions. As an example we discuss pumping driven by short voltage pulses for various interaction strengths. Such…
We investigate the influence of the Coulomb interaction on the adiabatic pumping current through quantum dots. Using nonequilibrium Green's functions techniques, we derive a general expression for the current based on the instantaneous Green's function of the dot. We apply this formula to study the dependence of the charge pumped per cycle on the time-dependent pumping potentials. The possibility of charge quantization in the presence of a finite Coulomb repulsion energy is investigated in the light of recent experiments.
Motivated by recent experiments, we investigate the electron-vibron coupling in suspended carbon nanotube quantum dots, starting with the electron-phonon coupling of the underlying graphene layer. We show that the coupling strength depends sensitively on the type of vibron and is strongly sample dependent. The coupling strength becomes particularly strong when inhomogeneity-induced electronic quantum dots are located near regions where the vibronic mode is associated with large strain. Specifically, we find that the longitudinal stretching mode and the radial breathing mode are coupled via the…
Electronic states and vibrons in carbon nanotube quantum dots have in general different location and size. As a consequence, the conventional Anderson-Holstein model, coupling vibrons to the dot total charge only, may no longer be appropriated in general. Here we explicitly address the role of the spatial fluctuations of the electronic density, yielding space-dependent Franck-Condon factors. We discuss the consequent marked effects on transport which are compatible with recent measurements. This picture can be relevant for tunneling experiments in generic nano-electromechanical systems.
We report Pauli spin blockade in an impurity defined carbon nanotube double quantum dot. We observe a pronounced current suppression for negative source-drain bias voltages which is investigated for both symmetric and asymmetric coupling of the quantum dots to the leads. The measured differential conductance agrees well with a theoretical model of a double quantum dot system in the spin-blockade regime which allows us to estimate the occupation probabilities of the relevant singlet and triplet states. This work shows that effective spin-to-charge conversion in nanotube quantum dots is feasible…
We analytically investigate the non-equilibrium pumping for a double quantum dots system on the basis of the quantum master equation (QME), where the double quantum dots are connected to two external leads by the spin coupling. Each of leads has two tunable parameters, temperature and chemical potential. Using QME formalism, we obtain an analytical expression of the Berry-like phase for eigenstate of the QME in the parameter space. We show that the Berry-like curvature is non zero in the whole region in the parameter space. We also show that the Berry-like curvature vanishes in the case of sin…
As an alternative to commonly used electrical methods, we have investigated the optical pumping of charged exciton complexes addressing impurity related transitions with photons of the appropriate energy. Under these conditions, we demonstrate that the pumping fidelity can be very high while still maintaining a switching behavior between the different excitonic species. This mechanism has been investigated for single quantum dots of different size present in the same sample and compared with the direct injection of spectator electrons from nearby donors.
We develop a theory of inter-valley Coulomb scattering in semiconducting carbon-nanotube quantum dots, taking into account the effects of curvature and chirality. Starting from the effective-mass description of single-particle states, we study the two-electron system by fully including Coulomb interaction, spin-orbit coupling, and short-range disorder. We find that the energy level splittings associated with inter-valley scattering are nearly independent of the chiral angle and, while smaller than those due to spin-orbit interaction, large enough to be measurable.
We review spin properties of semiconductor quantum dots and their effect on optical spectra. Photoluminescence and other types of spectroscopy are used to probe neutral and charged excitons in individual quantum dots with high spectral and spatial resolution. Spectral fine structure and polarization reveal how quantum dot spins interact with each other and with their environment. By taking advantage of the selectivity of optical selection rules and spin relaxation, optical spin pumping of the ground state electron and nuclear spins is achieved. Through such mechanisms, light can be used to pro…
We investigate a Quantum Dot (QD) in a Carbon Nanotube (CNT) in the regime where the QD is nearly isolated from the leads. An aluminum single electron transistor (SET) serves as a charge detector for the QD. We precisely measure and tune the tunnel rates into the QD in the range between 1 kHz and 1 Hz, using both pulse spectroscopy and real - time charge detection and measure the excitation spectrum of the isolated QD.
We derive a formula describing the adiabatically pumped charge through an interacting quantum dot within the scattering matrix and Green's function approach. We show that when the tunneling rates between the leads and the dot are varied adiabatically in time, both in modulus and phase, the current induced in the dot consists of two terms, the pumping current and a rectification-like term. The last contribution arises from the time-derivative of the tunneling phase and can have even or odd parity with respect to the pumping phase φ. The rectification-like term is also discussed in relation to s…
We report electrical transport measurements through a semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) with three additional top-gates. At low temperatures the system acts as a double quantum dot with large inter-dot tunnel coupling allowing for the observation of tunnel-coupled molecular states extending over the whole double-dot system. We precisely extract the tunnel coupling and identify the molecular states by the sequential-tunneling line shape of the resonances in differential conductance.
We study spin relaxation and decoherence caused by electron-lattice and spin-orbit interaction and predict striking effects induced by magnetic fields $B$. For particular values of $B$, destructive interference occurs resulting in ultralong spin relaxation times $T_1$ exceeding tens of seconds. For small phonon frequencies $ω$, we find a $1/\sqrtω$ spin-phonon noise spectrum -- a novel dissipation channel for spins in quantum dots -- which can reduce $T_1$ by many orders of magnitude. We show that nanotubes exhibit zero-field level splitting caused by spin-orbit interaction. This enables an al…
Quantum dots defined in carbon nanotubes are a platform for both basic scientific studies and research into new device applications. In particular, they have unique properties that make them attractive for studying the coherent properties of single electron spins. To perform such experiments it is necessary to confine a single electron in a quantum dot with highly tunable barriers, but disorder has until now prevented tunable nanotube-based quantum-dot devices from reaching the single-electron regime. Here, we use local gate voltages applied to an ultra-clean suspended nanotube to confine a si…
We consider a nanoelectromechanical system composed of a carbon nanotube suspended between two normal leads and coupled to a superconducting scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tip via vacuum tunnel barrier. Treating the nanotube as a single-level quantum dot, it is shown that an applied voltage between the superconducting STM tip and normal leads gives rise to a pumping or a cooling of the mechanical subsystem depending on the direction of the electronic flow. It is also demonstrated that the transition between these two regimes is controlled by the strength of the tunnel coupling between the…
We determine the level-shifts induced by cotunneling in a Coulomb blockaded carbon nanotube quantum dot using leading order quasi-degenerate perturbation theory within a single nanotube quartet. It is demonstrated that otherwise degenerate and equally tunnel-coupled $K$ and $K'$ states are mixed by cotunneling and therefore split up in energy except at the particle/hole-symmetric midpoints of the Coulomb diamonds. In the presence of an external magnetic field, we show that cotunneling induces a gate-dependent $g$-factor renormalization, and we outline different scenarios which might be observe…
The possibility of non-adiabatic electron pumping in the system of three coupled quantum dots attached to the leads is discussed. We have found out that periodical changing of energy level position in the middle quantum dot results in non zero mean tunneling current appeared due to non-adiabatic non-equilibrium processes. The same principle can be used for fabrication of a new class of semiconductor electronic devices based on non-stationary non-equilibrium currents. As an example we propose a nanometer quantum emitter with non-stationary inverse level occupation achieved by electron pumping.
We present a theoretical study of the Pauli or spin-valley blockade for double quantum dots in semiconducting carbon nanotubes. In our model we take into account the following characteristic features of carbon nanotubes: (i) fourfold (spin and valley) degeneracy of the quantum dot levels, (ii) the intrinsic spin-orbit interaction which is enhanced by the tube curvature, and (iii) valley-mixing due to short-range disorder, i.e., substitutional atoms, adatoms, etc. We find that the spin-valley blockade can be lifted in the presence of short-range disorder, which induces two independent random (i…
In order to investigate the effects of interference and interaction in adiabatic pumping, we consider an Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interferometer with a quantum dot embedded either in one or in both arms. We employ a real-time formalism and we perform an expansion both in the tunnel-coupling strengths between dot and leads and in the pumping frequency, taking into account the Coulomb interaction non perturbatively. We find that pumping in a single-dot AB interferometer has a peristaltic but phase-coherent character. In a double-dot AB interferometer, we find a pumping mechanism that relies purely on …
We investigate the total spin in an individual single-wall carbon nanotube quantum dot with various numbers of electrons in a shell by using the ratio of the saturation currents of the first steps of Coulomb staircases for positive and negative biases. The current ratio reflects the total-spin transition that is increased or decreased when the dot is connected to strongly asymmetric tunnel barriers. Our results indicate that total spin states with and without magnetic fields can be traced by this method.
The charge current pumped adiabatically through a deformable quantum dot is studied within the Green's function approach. Differently from the non-deformable case, the current shows an undefined parity with respect to the pumping phase ϕ. The unconventional current-phase relation, analyzed in the weak pumping regime, is due to a dynamical phase shift ϕ_D caused by the elastic deformations of the central region (classical phonons). The role of the quality factor Q of the oscillator, the effects induced by a mechanical resonance and the implications for current experiments on molecular systems a…
The transport properties of quantum dot (QD) systems based on double-walled carbon nanotube (DWCNT) are investigated. The interplay between microscopic structure and strong Coulomb interaction is treated within a bosonization framework. The linear and nonlinear G-V-V_g characteristics of the QD system is calculated by starting from the Liouville equation for the reduced density matrix. Depending on the intershell couplings, an 8-electron periodicity of the Coulomb blockade peak spacing in the case of commensurate DWCNT QDs and a 4-electron periodicity in the incommensurate case are predicted. …
We have studied electron transport in clean single-walled carbon nanotube quantum dots. Because of the large number of Coulomb blockade diamonds simultaneously showing both shell structure and Kondo effect, we are able to perform a detailed analysis of tunneling renormalization effects. Thus determining the environment induced level shifts of this artificial atom. In shells where only one of the two orbitals is coupled strongly, we observe a marked asymmetric gate-dependence of the inelastic cotunneling lines together with a systematic gate dependence of the size (and shape) of the Coulomb dia…
We propose a random matrix theory to describe the influence of a time-dependent external field on electron transport through open quantum dots. We describe the generation of the current by an oscillating field for the dot, connected to two leads with equal chemical potentials. For low frequency fields our results correspond to adiabatic charge pumping. Finite current can be produced if the system goes along a closed loop in parameter space, which covers a finite area. At high frequency finite current is produced even if the loop is a line in parameter space. This result can be explained in the…
We study magnetoconductance of the small bandgap carbon nanotube quantum dots in the presence of spin-orbit coupling in the strong correlations regime. The finite-U mean field slave boson approach is used to study many-body effects. Different degeneracies are restored in magnetic field and Kondo effects of different symmetries arise including SU(3) effects of different types. Full spin-orbital degeneracy might be recovered for zero field and correspondingly SU(4) Kondo effect sets in. We point out on the possibility of the occurrence of electron-hole Kondo effects in slanting magnetic fields, …
Low-temperature transport measurements have been carried out on single-wall carbon nanotube quantum dots in a weakly coupled regime in magnetic fields up to 8 Tesla. Four-electron shell filling was observed, and the magnetic field evolution of each Coulomb peak was investigated, in which magnetic field induced spin flip and resulting spin polarization were observed. Excitation spectroscopy measurements have revealed Zeeman splitting of single particle states for one electron in the shell, and demonstrated singlet and triplet states with direct observation of the exchange splitting at zero-magn…
We have measured the differential conductance dI/dV of individual multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWNT) of different lengths. A cross-over from wire-like (long tubes) to dot-like (short tubes) behavior is observed. dI/dV is dominated by random conductance fluctuations (UCF) in long MWNT devices (L=2...7 $μm$), while Coulomb blockade and energy level quantization are observed in short ones (L=300 nm). The electron levels of short MWNT dots are nearly four-fold degenerate (including spin) and their evolution in magnetic field (Zeeman splitting) agrees with a g-factor of 2. In zero magnetic field th…
We provide an atomistic tight-binding description of a few carriers confined in ambipolar (n-p) double quantum dots defined in a semiconducting carbon nanotube. We focus our attention on the charge state of the system in which Pauli blockade of the current flow is observed [F. Pei et al., Nat. Nanotechnol. 7, 630 (2012); E. A. Laird et al., ibid 8, 565 (2013)] with a single excess electron in the n-dot and a single hole in the p-dot. We use the configuration interaction approach to determine the spin-valley structure of the states near the neutrality point and discuss its consequences for the …
Adiabatic quantum pumping in noninteracting, phase coherent quantum dots is elegantly described by Brouwer's formula. Interactions within the dot, while suppressing phase coherence, make Brouwer's formalism inapplicable. In this paper, we discuss the nature of the physical processes forcing a description of pumping beyond Brouwer's formula, and develop, using a controlled adiabatic expansion, a useful formalism to study the effect of interactions within a generic perturbative scheme. The pumped current consists of a first contribution, analogous to Brouwer's formula and accounting for the rema…
We study electron pumping through a system of barriers, whose heights are deformed adiabatically. We derive a simple formula for the pumped charge $Q$ in terms of the total reflection and transmission amplitudes and phases. The pumped charge increases with the number of barriers ($n_b$) and shows an interesting step-like behaviour, with the steps appearing at integer values of $Q$. The pumped charge also tends towards quantisation with the increase of the amplitude of the time-varying potential. The value of the quantised pumped charge is shown to be correlated to the discontinuity of the refl…
We consider electron states in n-p double quantum dots defined in a semiconducting carbon nanotube (CNT) by an external potential. We describe formation of extended single-electron orbitals originating from the conduction and valence bands confined in a minimum and a maximum of the external potential, respectively. We solve the problem of a confined electron pair using an exact diagonalization method within the tight-binding approach, which allows for a straightforward treatment of the conduction and valence band states, keeping an exact account for the intervalley scattering mediated by the a…
Nuclear spin polarization can be pumped into spin-blocked quantum dots by multiple Landau- Zener passages through singlet-triplet anticrossings. By numerical simulations of realistic systems including approximately $10^7$ nuclear spins during $10^5$ sweeps, we uncover a mechanism of dynamical self-quenching which results in a fast saturation of the nuclear polarization under stationary pumping. This is caused by screening of the field of the nuclear spins. In systems with moderate spin-orbit coupling, self-quenching also screens the spin-orbit interaction. The mechanism is generic and remains …
We analytically calculate the nuclear-spin interactions of a single electron confined to a carbon nanotube or graphene quantum dot. While the conduction-band states in graphene are p-type, the accordant states in a carbon nanotube are sp-hybridized due to curvature. This leads to an interesting interplay between isotropic and anisotropic hyperfine interactions. By using only analytical methods, we are able to show how the interaction strength depends on important physical parameters, such as curvature and isotope abundances. We show that for the investigated carbon structures, the 13C hyperfin…
We consider charge transport through a nanoscopic object, e.g. single molecules, short nanotubes, or quantum dots, that is weakly coupled to metallic electrodes. We account for several levels of the molecule/quantum dot with level-dependent coupling strengths, and allow for relaxation of the excited states. The current-voltage characteristics as well as the current noise are calculated within first-order perturbation expansion in the coupling strengths. For the case of asymmetric coupling to the leads we predict negative-differential-conductance accompanied with super-poissonian noise. Both ef…
Generating and detecting radiation in the technologically relevant range of the so-called terahertz gap ($0.1 - 10$ THz) is challenging because of a lack of efficient sources and detectors. Quantum dots in carbon nanotubes have shown great potential to build sensitive terahertz detectors usually based on photon-assisted tunnelling. A recently reported mechanism combining resonant quantum dot transitions and tunnelling barriers asymmetries results in a narrow linewidth photocurrent response with a large signal-to-noise ratio under weak THz radiation. That device was sensitive to one frequency, …
In a mesoscopic system, under zero bias voltage, a finite charge is transferred by quantum adiabatic pumping by adiabatically and periodically changing two or more control parameters. We obtained expressions for the pumped charge for a ring of three quantum dots (QDs) by choosing the magnetic flux penetrating the ring as one of the control parameters. We found that the pumped charge shows a steplike behavior with respect to the variance of the flux. The value of the step heights is not universal but depends on the trajectory of the control parameters. We discuss the physical origin of this beh…
We study conductance through a quantum dot under Coulomb blockade conditions in the presence of an external periodic perturbation. The stationary state is determined by the balance between the heating of the dot electrons by the perturbation and cooling by electron exchange with the cold contacts. We show that Coulomb blockade peak can have a peculiar shape if heating is affected by dynamic localization, which can be an experimental signature of this effect.
We consider adiabatic charge transport through an almost open quantum dot. We show that the charge transmitted in one cycle is quantized in the limit of vanishing temperature and one-electron mean level spacing in the dot. The explicit analytic expression for the pumped charge at finite temperature is obtained for spinless electrons. The pumped charge is produced by both non-dissipative and dissipative currents. The latter are responsible for the corrections to charge quantization which are expressed through the conductance of the system.
