In this paper, we present a non-equilibrium quantum theory for transient electron dynamics in nanodevices based on the Feynman–Vernon influence functional. Applying the exact master equation for nanodevices we recently developed to the more general case in which all the constituents of a device vary in time in response to time-dependent external voltages, we obtained non-perturbatively the transient quantum transport theory in terms of the reduced density matrix. The theory enables us to study transient quantum transport in nanostructures with back-reaction effects from the contacts, with non-Markovian dissipation and decoherence being fully taken into account. For a simple illustration, we apply the theory to a single-electron transistor subjected to ac bias voltages. The non-Markovian memory structure and the nonlinear response functions describing transient electron transport are obtained.
Novel physics arises when strongly correlated system is driven out of equilibrium by external fields. Dramatic changes in physical properties, such as conductivity, are empirically observed in strongly correlated materials under high electric field. In particular, electric-field driven metal-insulator transitions are well-known as the resistive switching effect in a variety of materials, such as VO
2, V
2O
3 and other transition metal oxides. To satisfactorily explain both the phenomenology and its underlying mechanism, it is required to model microscopically the out-of-equilibrium dissipative lattice system of interacting electrons. In this thesis, we developed a systematic method of modeling non-equilibrium steady states for dissipative lattice systems by means of Non-equilibrium Green's function and Dynamical Mean Field Theory. We firstly establish a "minimum model" to formulate the strong-field transport in non-interacting dissipative electron lattice. This model is exactly soluble and convenient for discussing energy dissipation and steady-state properties. The formalism is then combined with Dynamical Mean Field Theory to provide a systematic framework describing the nonequilibrium steady-state of correlated materials. We use the formalism to study the strong-field transport properties of correlated materials, Mott insulators and Dirac electrons in graphene. We concentrate on the microscopic description of resistive switching. Of particular interest is the filament formation during the dynamical phase transition, which has been interpreted as a result of the delicate interplay between dissipation and Mott physics. We will also examine
IV characteristics and particularly the current saturation of Dirac electrons in graphene. The arXiv version has been updated with minor modifications and corrections.
We develop a population and flux landscape theory for general non-equilibrium quantum systems. We illustrate our theory by modelling the quantum transport of donor-acceptor energy transfer. We find two driving forces for the non-equilibrium quantum dynamics. The symmetric part of the driving force corresponds to the population landscape contribution which mainly governs the equilibrium part of dynamics while the anti-symmetric part of the driving force generates the non-equilibrium curl quantum flux which leads to the detailed-balance-breaking and time-irreversibility. The multi-loop structure of the flux emerges forms the flux-landscape. We study the trend of changes in population and flux-landscape with respect to the voltage (temperature difference induced by environments) and electronic coupling. Improving the voltage and electronic coupling in general facilitates the quantum transport by reducing the population landscape barriers between major states and increasing the mean value of the flux. A limit-cycle mode emerges when the underlying flux-landscape becomes funnelled with a significant gap between the largest flux loop and the rest of them. On the kinetic level, we find that multiple kinetic paths between quantum states emerge and illustrate the interference effects. The degree of interference is determined by the landscape and flux. Furthermore, we quantify kinetic rate which strongly correlates with the population landscape and flux. For quantum transport, we demonstrate that as the coherence or the quantum entanglement is enhanced, the flux and energy transfer efficiency are increased. Finally it is surprising that the non-equilibriumness quantified by voltage has a non-trivial contribution on strengthening the entanglement, which is attributed to the non-local feature of the quantum curl flux.