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Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks

Transport of Interacting Electrons through a Double Barrier

I. V. Gornyi, Dmitry G. Polyakov

Published Jul 25, 2006• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We generalize the fermionic renormalization group method to describe analytically transport through a double barrier structure in a one-dimensional system. Focusing on the case of weakly interacting electrons, we investigate thoroughly the dependence of the conductance on the strength and the shape of the double barrier for arbitrary temperature T. Our approach allows us to systematically analyze the contributions to renormalized scattering amplitudes from different characteristic scales absent in the case of a single impurity, without restricting the consideration to the model of a single resonant level. Both a sequential resonant tunneling for high T and a resonant transmission for T smaller than the resonance width are studied within the unified treatment of transport through strong barriers. For weak barriers, we show that two different regimes are possible. Moderately weak impurities may get strong due to a renormalization by interacting electrons, so that transport is described in terms of theory for initially strong barriers. The renormalization of very weak impurities does not yield any peak in the transmission probability; however, remarkably, the interaction gives rise to a sharp peak in the conductance, provided asymmetry is not too high.

DOI
10.1007/1-4020-4779-7_13

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We generalize the fermionic renormalization group method to describe analytically transport through a double barrier structure in a one-dimensional system. Focusing on the case of weakly interacting electrons, we investigate thoroughly the dependence of the conductance on the strength and the shape of the double barrier for arbitrary temperature T. Our approach allows us to systematically analyze the contributions to renormalized scattering amplitudes from different characteristic scales absent in the case of a single impurity, without restricting the consideration to the model of a single resonant level. Both a sequential resonant tunneling for high T and a resonant transmission for T smaller than the resonance width are studied within the unified treatment of transport through strong barriers. For weak barriers, we show that two different regimes are possible. Moderately weak impurities may get strong due to a renormalization by interacting electrons, so that transport is described in terms of theory for initially strong barriers. The renormalization of very weak impurities does not yield any peak in the transmission probability; however, remarkably, the interaction gives rise to a sharp peak in the conductance, provided asymmetry is not too high.
We generalize the fermionic renormalization group method to analytically describe transport through a double barrier structure in a one-dimensional system. Focusing on the case of weakly interacting electrons, we investigate thoroughly the dependence of the conductance on the strength and the shape of the double barrier for arbitrary temperature T. Our approach allows us to systematically analyze the contributions to renormalized scattering amplitudes from different characteristic scales absent in the case of a single impurity, without restricting the consideration to the model of a single resonant level. Both a sequential resonant tunneling for high T and a resonant transmission for T smaller than the resonance width are studied within the unified treatment of transport through strong barriers. For weak barriers, we show that two different regimes are possible. Moderately weak impurities may get strong due to a renormalization by interacting electrons, so that transport is described in terms of theory for initially strong barriers. The renormalization of very weak impurities does not yield any peak in the transmission probability; however, remarkably, the interaction gives rise to a sharp peak in the conductance, provided the asymmetry is not too high.
We study theoretically transport of a one-dimensional single-channel interacting electron gas through barriers or constrictions. We find that electrons with repulsive interactions, incident upon a single barrier, are completely reflected at zero temperature. At finite temperature (T), the conductance is shown to vanish as a power of T, and at zero temperature, power-law current-voltage characteristics are predicted. For attractive interactions, we predict perfect transmission at zero temperature, with similar power-law corrections. We also study resonant tunneling through a double-barrier structure and related effects associated with the Coulomb blockade. Resonant peaks in the transmission are possible, provided the interactions are not too strongly repulsive. However, in contrast to resonant tunneling in a noninteracting electron gas, we find that in the presence of interactions the width of the resonance vanishes, as a power of temperature, in the zero-temperature limit. Moreover, the resonance line shapes are shown to be described by a universal scaling function, which has power law, but non-Lorentzian tails. For a particular choice of interaction strengths, we present an exact solution of our model, which verifies the scaling assumptions and provides an explicit expression for the scaling function. We also consider the role played by the electron-spin degree of freedom in modifying the trasnsmission through barriers. With spin, there are four possible phases corresponding to perfect transmission or perfect reflection of charge and spin. We present phase diagrams for these different behaviors and analyze the nontrivial transitions between them. At these transitions we find that the conductance or transmission is universal---depending only on the dimensionless conductance of the leads and not on the details of the barriers. In the case of resonant tunneling with spin, we discuss the ``Kondo'' resonance, which occurs when there is a spin degeneracy for electrons between the two barriers. Many of the predictions should be directly testable in gated GaAs wires.
Scattering from a localized potential of arbitrary strength is found for weakly interacting electrons. Poor man's renormalization group procedure allows us to calculate the renormalized transmission amplitudes at any energies. Simple formulas that describe the conductance at any temperature are derived. In the presence of the electron-electron backscattering, the low-temperature conductance deviates from the results of Luttinger liquid theory. In particular, the temperature dependence of the conductance may become nonmonotonic. In the presence of a magnetic field, backscattering gives rise to a peak in the differential conductance at bias equal to the Zeeman splitting.
We study transport through a one-dimensional quantum wire of correlated fermions connected to semi-infinite leads. The wire contains either a single impurity or two barriers, the latter allowing for resonant tunneling. In the leads the fermions are assumed to be noninteracting. The wire is described by a microscopic lattice model. Using the functional renormalization group we calculate the linear conductance for wires of mesoscopic length and for all relevant temperature scales. For a single impurity, either strong or weak, we find power-law behavior as a function of temperature. In addition, we can describe the complete crossover from the weak- to the strong-impurity limit. For two barriers, depending on the parameters of the enclosed quantum dot, we find temperature regimes in which the conductance follows power laws with ``universal'' exponents as well as nonuniversal behavior. Our approach leads to a comprehensive picture of resonant tunneling. We compare our results with those of alternative approaches.
Transport through a single barrier in a one-dimensional (1D) interacting electron system is studied theoretically. By using renormalization group and duality mapping, the phase diagram of the ground state is shown to be divided into four regions in terms of the zero-temperature limits of the charge and spin conductances. The conductances are calculated perturbatively for both limits of weak and strong potential. The results are applied to clarify the crossover and scaling of the Anderson localization in a 1D system with dilute impurities. It is shown that the temperature dependence of the resistivity of the system can change significantly around a characteristic temperature corresponding to discretization energy.
We calculate the linear response conductance of electrons in a Luttinger liquid with arbitrary interaction g2{g}_{2}g2​, and subject to a potential barrier of arbitrary strength, as a function of temperature. We map the Hamiltonian in the basis of scattering states into an effective low energy Hamiltonian in current algebra form. First the renormalization group (RG) equation for weak interaction is derived in the current operator language both using the operator product expansion and the equation of motion method. To access the strong coupling regime, two methods of deducing the RG equation from perturbation theory, based on the scaling hypothesis and on the Callan-Symanzik formulation, are discussed. The important role of scale-independent terms is emphasized. The latter depend on the regularization scheme used (length versus temperature cutoff). Analyzing the perturbation theory in the fermionic representation, the diagrams contributing to the renormalization group $\ensuremath{\beta}$-function are identified. A universal part of the $\ensuremath{\beta}$-function is given by a ladder series and summed to all orders in g2{g}_{2}g2​. First nonuniversal corrections beyond the ladder series are discussed and are shown to differ from the exact solutions obtained within conformal field theory which use a different regularization scheme. The RG equation for the temperature-dependent conductance is solved analytically. Our result agrees with known limiting cases.