Transient currents of a single molecular junction with a vibrational mode

Abstract

By using a propagation scheme for current matrices and an auxiliary mode expansion method, we investigate the transient dynamics of a single molecular junction coupled with a vibrational mode. Our approach is based on the spinless Anderson–Holstein model and the dressed tunnelling approximation for the electronic self-energy in the polaronic regime. The time-dependent currents after a sudden switching on the tunnelling to leads, an abrupt upward step bias pulse and a step potential on the quantum dot are calculated. We show that the strong electron–phonon interaction greatly influences the nonlinear response properties of the system, and gives rise to interesting characteristics on the time traces of transient currents.