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arXiv:cond-mat/0702312 · Physical Review B

Nonlinear transport through a dynamic impurity in a strongly interacting one-dimensional electron gas

Thomas L. Schmidt, A. Komnik

Published Jul 18, 2007• 8 citations
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Abstract

We analyze the transport properties of a Luttinger liquid with an embedded impurity of explicitly time-dependent strength. We employ a radiative boundary condition formalism to describe the coupling to the voltage sources. Assuming the impurity time dependence to be oscillatory, we present a full analytic perturbative result in impurity strength for arbitrary interaction parameter calculated with the help of Coulomb gas expansion (CGE). Moreover, a full analytic solution beyond the above restriction is possible for a special nontrivial interaction strength which has been achieved independently by full resummation of CGE series as well as via refermionization technique. The resulting nonlinear current-voltage characteristic turns out to be very rich due to the presence of the additional energy scale associated with the impurity oscillation frequency. In accordance with the previous studies, we also find an enhancement of the linear conductance of the wire to values above the unitary limit ${G}_{0}=2{e}^{2}∕h$.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.76.035113

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We analyze the transport properties of a Luttinger liquid with an embedded impurity of explicitly time-dependent strength. We employ a radiative boundary condition formalism to describe the coupling to the voltage sources. Assuming the impurity time dependence to be oscillatory, we present a full analytic perturbative result in impurity strength for arbitrary interaction parameter calculated with the help of Coulomb gas expansion (CGE). Moreover, a full analytic solution beyond the above restriction is possible for a special nontrivial interaction strength which has been achieved independently by full resummation of CGE series as well as via refermionization technique. The resulting nonlinear current-voltage characteristic turns out to be very rich due to the presence of the additional energy scale associated with the impurity oscillation frequency. In accordance with the previous studies, we also find an enhancement of the linear conductance of the wire to values above the unitary limit G0=2e2∕h{G}_{0}=2{e}^{2}∕hG0​=2e2∕h.
We study theoretically the transport properties of an interacting quantum wire in the presence of a time-dependent point impurity. Using the Keldysh formalism within the framework of Luttinger liquid model, we calculate and analyze the dc contribution of the backscattered current and the shot noise of the system with arbitrary Luttinger interaction strength and impurity position. From some numerical examples, we find that the time-dependent point impurity in the wire can enhance the total current in the strongly interaction regime, and the total current enhancement is dependent on both the impurity potential frequency and the equivalent frequency in relation to the drain-source voltage VVV. The dc contribution of the backscattered current oscillates as a function of impurity frequency with the period depending on the Luttinger interaction strength. Furthermore, the oscillation of the dc contribution of the backscattered current is not a finite-length effect, which is different from that in the case of system with a static point impurity, and the oscillation characteristic is also connected with VVV. However, the final current-noise relation is similar to that in the case of a static point impurity.
The nonlinear transport in a Luttinger liquid with finite-range interaction is considered for a general time-dependent driving electric field, in the presence of an impurity. In the static limit, the nonlinear current-voltage characteristic depends only on the integral of the driving field. For a time-dependent field, a relation between the currents at different sites is derived which depends only on the nonlocal ac conductivity of the Luttinger system without impurity, but is independent of the strength and the shape of the electric field. Experimental consequences are discussed.
We study the transport properties of a quantum wire, described by the Tomonaga-Luttinger model, in the presence of a backscattering potential provided by several extended time-dependent impurities (barriers). Employing the B\"uttiker-Landauer approach, we first consider the scattering of noninteracting electrons (g=1)(g=1)(g=1) by a rectangularlike barrier and find an exact solution for the backscattering current, as well as a perturbative solution for a weak static potential with an arbitrary shape. We then include electron-electron interactions and use the Keldysh formalism combined with the bosonization technique to study oscillating extended barriers. We show that the backscattering current off time-dependent impurities can be expressed in terms of the current for the corresponding static barrier. Then we determine the backscattering current for a static extended potential, which, in the limit of noninteracting electrons (g=1)(g=1)(g=1), coincides with the result obtained using the B\"uttiker-Landauer formalism. In particular, we find that the conductance can be increased beyond its quantized value in the whole range of repulsive interactions 0<g<10<g<10<g<1 already in the case of a single oscillating extended impurity, in contrast to the case of a pointlike impurity, where this phenomenon occurs only for 0<g<1∕20<g<1∕20<g<1∕2.
The Landauer approach to transport in mesoscopic conductors has been generalized to allow for strong electronic correlations in a single-channel quantum wire. We describe in detail how to account for external voltage sources in adiabatic contact with a quantum wire containing a backscatterer of arbitrary strength. Assuming that the quantum wire is in the Luttinger liquid state, voltage sources lead to radiative boundary conditions applied to the displacement field employed in the bosonization scheme. We present the exact solution of the transport problem for arbitrary backscattering strength at the special Coulomb interaction parameter g=1/2.g=1/2.g=1/2.
We study theoretically electronic transport through an isolated local defect in a 1D conductor described in terms of the Luttinger liquid, and show that the well-known tunneling regime of electronic transport leading to power-law I-V curves takes place only in the limit of small voltage. At voltages exceeding a threshold value a new dynamic regime of transport starts in which the DC current induces AC oscillations of frequency f = /e. In gated quantum wires where interaction between electrons is short-ranged, generation linewidth is small provided the inter-electronic repulsion is strong enough, otherwise a wide-band noise is generated. In case of long-range Coulomb interaction generation is coherent at any interaction strength. The effect is related to interaction of the current with Friedel oscillations of the electronic density around the impurity. Manifestations of the effect resemble the Coulomb blockade and the Josephson effect. Oscillations of the electric current are accompanied by spin current oscillations. The results are related to semiconducting quantum wires, metallic atomic chains, carbon nanotubes, graphene nanoribbons and others.
We study the transport properties of a Luttinger liquid in the presence of several time-dependent weak pointlike impurities. Our starting point is the bosonized form of the Luttinger liquid Hamiltonian with a potential introduced by the impurities. We find the correction to the total current due to the backscattering of the electrons by the impurities in first order of perturbation theory for a general time-dependent impurity potential. We then apply this result to a single time-dependent impurity, and show that it reproduces the result obtained by Feldman and Gefen [Phys. Rev. B 67, 115337 (2003)], in particular that the current enhancement occurs only for strong repulsive electron-electron interactions. For the case of two impurities oscillating with the same frequency, we find that the dc component of the backscattering current is positive even for weak repulsive interactions, due to the presence of the interference term induced by spatial correlations in the Luttinger liquid. We show that the impurity frequencies at which the enhancement takes place form a bandlike structure. In the case of several impurities, the bands become broader, because of interference effects.