Study Of Quantum Transport Research Articles

Wigner transport equation with finite coherence length

The use of the Wigner function for the study of quantum transport in open systems is subject to severe criticisms. Some of the problems arise from the assumption of infinite coherence length of the electron dynamics outside the system of interest. In the present work the theory of the Wigner function is revised assuming a finite coherence length. A new dynamical equation is found, corresponding to move the Wigner momentum off the real axis, and a numerical analysis is performed for the case of study of the one-dimensional potential barrier. In quantum device simulations, for a sufficiently long coherence length, the new formulation does not modify the physics in any finite region of interest but it prevents mathematical divergence problems.

Tunnel Magnetoresistance of M^(+)@C(subscript 60) (M = Cs, Li, and Na) Molecular Junctions

In this research, a theoretical study of spin-polarized quantum transport has been reported through a M^(+)@C(subscript 60) (M = Cs, Li, Na) molecule attached to two square lattice FM electrodes with finite cross sections. The effects of dimerization bond, the contact types, the ion positions into cage and ion types on the transmission coefficient, the spin-injection factor, and the TMR ratio have been investigated using the Keldysh nonequilibrium Green's function formalism. The results indicate that the spin-injection factor can reach to as large as 100% with the proper selection of the contact types, the ion positions and types. When the Li atom locates at 2 A distance from the cage center, the TMR ratio in the Li^(+)@C(subscript 60) molecule varies from 100% to -80% corresponding to the contact types.

Electronic transport through Li@C59X (X = B or N) molecular junctions

A theoretical study of quantum transport through Li@C59X (X = B or N) molecular junction is presented by applying Keldysh nonequilibrium Green’s function formalism. The effects of doped atom, size quantization and position of Lithium on electronic transport are considered. By incorporating an extra atom at center of fullerene molecule, it is possible to control current in loops and hence the progress of transport. At low applied voltage (−1 to 1 V), doping and quantum confinement of the encaged atom in fullerene increase current. Also coupling through N atoms as compared to coupling through B atoms increases it more.

Tight-binding study of quantum transport in nanoscale GaAs Schottky MOSFET

This paper explores the band structure effect to elucidate the feasibility of an ultra-scaled GaAs Schottky MOSFET (SBFET) in a nanoscale regime. We have employed a 20-band sp3d5 s* tight-binding (TB) approach to compute E — K dispersion. The considerable difference between the extracted effective masses from the TB approach and bulk values implies that quantum confinement affects the device performance. Beside high injection velocity, the ultra-scaled GaAs SBFET suffers from a low conduction band DOS in the Γ valley that results in serious degradation of the gate capacitance. Quantum confinement also results in an increment of the effective Schottky barrier height (SBH). Enhanced Schottky barriers form a double barrier potential well along the channel that leads to resonant tunneling and alters the normal operation of the SBFET. Major factors that may lead to resonant tunneling are investigated. Resonant tunneling occurs at low temperatures and low drain voltages, and gradually diminishes as the channel thickness and the gate length scale down. Accordingly, the GaAs (100) SBFET has poor ballistic performance in nanoscale regime.

Controlling and Measuring Quantum Transport of Heat in Trapped-Ion Crystals

Measuring heat flow through nanoscale devices poses formidable practical difficulties as there is no "ampere meter" for heat. We propose to overcome this problem in a chain of trapped ions, where laser cooling the chain edges to different temperatures induces a heat current of local vibrations (vibrons). We show how to efficiently control and measure this current, including fluctuations, by coupling vibrons to internal ion states. This demonstrates that ion crystals provide an ideal platform for studying quantum transport, e.g., through thermal analogues of quantum wires and quantum dots. Notably, ion crystals may give access to measurements of the elusive bosonic fluctuations in heat currents and the onset of Fourier's law. Our results are strongly supported by numerical simulations for a realistic implementation with specific ions and system parameters.

Cryogenic on-chip multiplexer for the study of quantum transport in 256 split-gate devices

We present a multiplexing scheme for the measurement of large numbers of mesoscopic devices in cryogenic systems. The multiplexer is used to contact an array of 256 split gates on a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure, in which each split gate can be measured individually. The low-temperature conductance of split-gate devices is governed by quantum mechanics, leading to the appearance of conductance plateaux at intervals of 2e2/h. A fabrication-limited yield of 94% is achieved for the array, and a “quantum yield” is also defined, to account for disorder affecting the quantum behaviour of the devices. The quantum yield rose from 55% to 86% after illuminating the sample, explained by the corresponding increase in carrier density and mobility of the two-dimensional electron gas. The multiplexer is a scalable architecture, and can be extended to other forms of mesoscopic devices. It overcomes previous limits on the number of devices that can be fabricated on a single chip due to the number of electrical contacts available, without the need to alter existing experimental set ups.

Electron transport in nano-scaled piezoelectronic devices

The Piezoelectronic Transistor (PET) has been proposed as a post-CMOS device for fast, low-power switching. In this device, the piezoresistive channel is metalized via the expansion of a relaxor piezoelectric element to turn the device on. The mixed-valence compound SmSe is a good choice of PET channel material because of its isostructural pressure-induced continuous metal insulator transition, which is well characterized in bulk single crystals. Prediction and optimization of the performance of a realistic, nano-scaled PET based on SmSe requires the understanding of quantum confinement, tunneling, and the effect of metal interface. In this work, a computationally efficient empirical tight binding (ETB) model is developed for SmSe to study quantum transport in these systems and the scaling limit of PET channel lengths. Modulation of the SmSe band gap under pressure is successfully captured by ETB, and ballistic conductance shows orders of magnitude change under hydrostatic strain, supporting operability of the PET device at nanoscale.

Abnormal electronic transport in disordered four-terminal graphene nanodevice

In this paper, a numerical study of quantum transport in a disordered four-terminal graphene nanodevice is investigated based on the Landauer approach. The effects of impurity on transmission coefficient of the electron injected into the system are studied using tight-binding model. In this manner, we emphasize that when the disorder density is sufficiently large, the transmission coefficients and the current reduce due to multiscattering phenomenon. We have found that the perfectly conducting channel develops in four-terminal device in its zigzag edge if the range of impurity gets exponentially wider. The theoretical results obtained can be a base for the development in designing graphene nanodevice.

Dissipative transport in rough edge graphene nanoribbon tunnel transistors

We have studied quantum transport in graphene nanoribbon tunnel field-effect transistors. Unlike other studies on similar structures, we have included dissipative processes induced by inelastic electron-phonon scattering and edge roughness in the nanoribbon self-consistently within a non-equilibrium transport simulation. Our results show that the dissipative scattering imposes a limit to the minimum OFF current and a minimum subthreshold swing that can be obtained even for long channel lengths where direct source-drain tunneling is inhibited. The edge roughness, in the presence of dissipative scattering, somewhat surprisingly, shows a classical behavior where it mostly reduces the maximum ON current achievable in this structure.

Analytical and numerical study of quantum transport in an array of nanorings: A case study with double rings

We present an analytical method to obtain an expression for electron transmission through an array of disordered nanorings (ADNRs) sandwiched between two semi-infinite metallic leads in different lead-ring coupling strengths. Our approach is based on the nearest-neighbor tight-binding approximation and transfer matrix method. First, we derive an analytical formula for electron transmission across the system. Next, we apply our approach to study of the electron transport in a perfect double nanoring (PDNR) and design a NOR gate using the magnetic fluxes inputs. The conductance, current–voltage characteristics and threshold voltage of the system are calculated in the weak and strong coupling regimes.

Matter wave transport and Anderson localization in anisotropic three-dimensional disorder

We study quantum transport of matter waves in anisotropic three-dimensional disorder. First, we show that structured correlations can induce rich effects, such as anisotropic suppression of the white-noise limit and inversion of the transport anisotropy. Second, we show that the localization threshold (mobility edge) is strongly affected by a disorder-induced shift of the energy states, which we calculate. Our work is directly relevant to ultracold-matter waves in optical disorder, and implications on recent experiments are discussed. It also offers scope for further studies of anisotropy effects in other systems with controlled disorder, where counterparts of the discussed effects can be expected.

Universal Conductance Fluctuations in Dirac Materials in the Presence of Long-range Disorder

We study quantum transport in Dirac materials with a single fermionic Dirac cone (strong topological insulators and graphene in the absence of intervalley coupling) in the presence of non-Gaussian long-range disorder. We show, by directly calculating numerically the conductance fluctuations, that in the limit of very large system size and disorder strength, quantum transport becomes universal. However, a systematic deviation away from universality is obtained for realistic system parameters. By comparing our results to existing experimental data on 1/f noise, we suggest that many of the graphene samples studied to date are in a nonuniversal crossover regime of conductance fluctuations.

Level statistics for quantumk-core percolation

Quantum $k$-core percolation is the study of quantum transport on $k$-core percolation clusters where each occupied bond must have at least $k$ occupied neighboring bonds. As the bond occupation probability $p$ is increased from zero to unity, the system undergoes a transition from an insulating phase to a metallic phase. When the length scale for the disorder ${l}_{d}$ is much greater than the coherence length ${l}_{c}$, earlier analytical calculations of quantum conduction on the Bethe lattice demonstrated that for $k=3$ the metal-insulator transition (MIT) is discontinuous, suggesting a new type of disorder-driven quantum MITs. Here, we numerically compute the level spacing distribution as a function of bond occupation probability $p$ and system size on a Bethe-like lattice. The level spacing analysis suggests that for $k=0$, ${p}_{q}$, the quantum percolation critical probability, is greater than ${p}_{c}$, the geometrical percolation critical probability, and the transition is continuous. In contrast, for $k=3$, ${p}_{q}={p}_{c}$, and the transition is discontinuous such that these numerical findings are consistent with our previous work to reiterate a new random first-order phase transition and therefore a new universality class of disorder-driven quantum MITs.

Edge currents and nanopore arrays in zigzag and chiral graphene nanoribbons as a route toward high-ZTthermoelectrics

We analyze electronic and phononic quantum transport through zigzag or chiral graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) perforated with an array of nanopores. Since local charge current profiles in these GNRs are peaked around their edges, drilling nanopores in their interior does not affect such edge charge currents while drastically reducing heat current carried by phonons in sufficiently long wires. The combination of these two effects can yield highly efficient thermoelectric devices with maximum $ZT \simeq 11$ at liquid nitrogen temperature and $ZT \simeq 4$ at room temperature achieved in $\sim 1$ $\mu$m long zigzag GNRs with nanopores of variable diameter and spacing between them. Our analysis is based on the $\pi$-orbital tight-binding Hamiltonian with up to third nearest-neighbor hopping for electronic subsystem, the empirical fourth-nearest-neighbor model for phononic subsystem, and nonequilibrium Green function formalism to study quantum transport in both of these models.

A note on symmetry reductions of the Lindblad equation: transport in constrained open spin chains

We study quantum transport properties of an open Heisenberg XXZ spin 1/2 chain driven by a pair of Lindblad jump operators satisfying a global ‘micro-canonical’ constraint, i.e. conserving the total magnetization. We will show that this system has an additional discrete symmetry that is specific to the Liouvillean description of the problem. Such symmetry reduces the dynamics even more than would be expected in the standard Hilbert space formalism and establishes existence of multiple steady states. Interestingly, numerical simulations of the XXZ model suggest that a pair of distinct non-equilibrium steady states becomes indistinguishable in the thermodynamic limit, and exhibit sub-diffusive spin transport in the easy-axis regime of anisotropy Δ > 1.

Electronic conductance via atomic wires: a phase field matching theory approach

A model is presented for the quantum transport of electrons, across finite atomic wire nanojunctions between electric leads, at zero bias limit. In order to derive the appropriate transmission and reflection spectra, familiar in the Landauer-B\"{u}ttiker formalism, we develop the algebraic phase field matching theory (PFMT). In particular, we apply our model calculations to determine the electronic conductance for freely suspended monatomic linear sodium wires (MLNaW) between leads of the same element, and for the diatomic copper-cobalt wires (DLCuCoW) between copper leads on a Cu(111) substrate. Calculations for the MLNaW system confirm the correctness and functionality of our PFMT approach. We present novel transmission spectra for this system, and show that its transport properties exhibit the conductance oscillations for the odd- and even-number wires in agreement with previously reported first-principle results. The numerical calculations for the DLCuCoW wire nanojunctions are motivated by the stability of these systems at low temperatures. Our results for the transmission spectra yield for this system, at its Fermi energy, a monotonic exponential decay of the conductance with increasing wire length of the Cu-Co pairs. This is a cumulative effect which is discussed in detail in the present work, and may prove useful for applications in nanocircuits. Furthermore, our PFMT formalism can be considered as a compact and efficient tool for the study of the electronic quantum transport for a wide range of nanomaterial wire systems. It provides a trade-off in computational efficiency and predictive capability as compared to slower first-principle based methods, and has the potential to treat the conductance properties of more complex molecular nanojunctions.

Numerical study of localization length in disordered graphene nanoribbons

In this work, we study quantum transport properties of a defective graphene nanoribbon (DGNR) attached to two semi-infinite metallic armchair graphene nanoribbon (AGNR) leads. A line of defects is considered in the GNR device with different configurations, which affects on the energy spectrum of the system. The calculations are based on the tight-binding model and Green’s function method, in which localization length of the system is investigated, numerically. By controlling disorder concentration, the extended states can be separated from the localized states in the system. Our results may have important applications for building blocks in the nano-electronic devices based on GNRs.

General method for calculating the universal conductance of strongly correlated junctions of multiple quantum wires

We develop a method to extract the universal conductance of junctions of multiple quantum wires, a property of systems connected to reservoirs, from static ground-state computations in closed finite systems. The method is based on a key relationship, derived within the framework of boundary conformal field theory, between the conductance tensor and certain ground-state correlation functions. Our results provide a systematic way of studying quantum transport in the presence of strong electron-electron interactions using efficient numerical techniques such as the standard time-independent density-matrix renormalization-group method. We give a step-by-step recipe for applying the method and present several tests and benchmarks. As an application of the method, we calculate the conductance of the M fixed point of a Y junction of Luttinger liquids for several values of the Luttinger parameter $g$ and conjecture its functional dependence on $g$.

Effect of doped atom magnetism on electronic transport through C59X and C69X(X = B and N) molecular junctions

In this paper, a theoretical study of spin-polarized quantum transport through a CnX molecular junction is presented applying the Keldysh non-equilibrium Green's function formalism. The effects of contacts, doped atom and cage type and the gate and bias voltages on spin-polarized quantum transport through the CnX molecular junction are considered in calculations. The calculations indicate that the spin-dependent local density of states of the CnX molecules is the cause of magnetic moment on every carbon atom in the vicinity of the doped atom. Also, the spin polarization can reach as high as about 100% with proper selection of bias and gate voltages.

Quantum-Transport Study on the Impact of Channel Length and Cross Sections on Variability Induced by Random Discrete Dopants in Narrow Gate-All-Around Silicon Nanowire Transistors

In this paper, we review and extend recent work on the effect of random discrete dopants on the statistical variability in gate-all-around silicon nanowire transistors. The electron transport is described using the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism. Full 3-D real-space and coupled-mode-space repre sentations are used. Two different cross sections (i.e., 2.2 × 2.2 and 4.2 × 4.2 nm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> ) and two different channel lengths (i.e., 6 and 12 nm) have been considered. The resistivity associated with discrete dopants can be estimated from the averaged current-voltage characteristics. The threshold-voltage variability and the sub threshold-slope variability are reduced greatly in the transistors with longer channel length. Both are smaller at equivalent channel lengths in the 2.2 × 2.2 nm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> device due to better electrostatic integrity. At the same time, the ON-state-current variability associated with the varying resistance of the access regions is virtually independent of the channel length. However, it is reduced greatly in the 4.2 × 4.2 nm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> transistor due to a fourfold increase in the number of dopants in the access regions and corresponding self-averaging effects. Finally, we present results for the smallest transistor combining two sources of variability (i.e., discrete random dopants and surface roughness) and phonon scattering.