Charge fluctuations in nonlinear heat transport

In this study of non-equilibrium heat transport in quantum nanostructures as modeled by the Anderson impurity model, the authors show that monitoring the energy conductance as a function of gate or source-drain voltage can reveal the fingerprints of inelastic scattering processes in a way that the c...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. B, Condensed matter and materials physics Condensed matter and materials physics, 2015-05, Vol.91 (20), Article 201107
Main Authors: Gergs, Niklas M., Hörig, Christoph B. M., Wegewijs, Maarten R., Schuricht, Dirk
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Charge
Condensed matter
Conductance
Fluctuation
Mathematical models
Nanostructure
Nonlinearity
Transport
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In this study of non-equilibrium heat transport in quantum nanostructures as modeled by the Anderson impurity model, the authors show that monitoring the energy conductance as a function of gate or source-drain voltage can reveal the fingerprints of inelastic scattering processes in a way that the charge conductance does not. We show that charge fluctuation processes are crucial for the nonlinear heat conductance through an interacting nanostructure, even far from a resonance. We illustrate this for an Anderson quantum dot accounting for the first two leading orders of the tunneling in a master equation. The often made assumption that off-resonant transport proceeds entirely by virtual occupation of charge states, underlying exchange-scattering models, can fail dramatically for heat transport. The identified energy-transport resonances in the Coulomb blockade regime provide qualitative information about relaxation processes, for instance, by a strong negative differential heat conductance relative to the heat current. These can go unnoticed in the charge current, making nonlinear heat-transport spectroscopy with energy-level control a promising experimental tool.
ISSN:1098-0121
1550-235X
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.91.201107