Theory of the Franck-Condon blockade regime
| dc.creator | Koch, Jens | |
| dc.creator | von Oppen, Felix | |
| dc.creator | Andreev, A. V. | |
| dc.date | 2006-06-20 | |
| dc.date | 2006-12-01 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T07:12:46Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T07:12:46Z | |
| dc.description | Strong coupling of electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom entails a low-bias suppression of the current through single-molecule devices, termed Franck-Condon blockade. In the limit of slow vibrational relaxation, transport in the Franck-Condon-blockade regime proceeds via avalanches of large numbers of electrons, which are interrupted by long waiting times without electron transfer. The avalanches consist of smaller avalanches, leading to a self-similar hierarchy which terminates once the number of transferred electrons per avalanche becomes of the order of unity. Experimental signatures of self-similar avalanche transport are strongly enhanced current (shot) noise, as expressed by giant Fano factors, and a power-law noise spectrum. We develop a theory of the Franck-Condon-blockade regime with particular emphasis on effects of electron cotunneling through highly excited vibrational states. As opposed to the exponential suppression of sequential tunneling rates for low-lying vibrational states, cotunneling rates suffer only a power-law suppression. This leads to a regime where cotunneling dominates the current for any gate voltage. Including cotunneling within a rate-equation approach to transport, we find that both the Franck-Condon blockade and self-similar avalanche transport remain intact in this regime. We predict that cotunneling leads to absorption-induced vibrational sidebands in the Coulomb-blockaded regime as well as intrinsic telegraph noise near the charge degeneracy point. | |
| dc.description | 20 pages, 10 figures; minor changes, version published in Phys. Rev. B | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0606512 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0606512 | |
| dc.identifier | Phys. Rev. B 74, 205438 (2006) | |
| dc.identifier | doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.74.205438 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/112188 | |
| dc.subject | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics | |
| dc.title | Theory of the Franck-Condon blockade regime | |
| dc.type | text |