We investigate the transport properties of a graphene layer in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit interaction. Quite generally, spin-orbit interactions induce spin splittings and modifications of the graphene band structure. We calculate within the scattering approach the linear electric and thermoelectric responses of a clean sample when the Rashba coupling is localized around a finite region. We find that the thermoelectric conductance, unlike its electric counterpart, is quite sensitive to external modulations of the Fermi energy. Therefore, our results suggest that thermocurrent measurements may serve as a useful tool to detect nonhomogeneous spin-orbit interactions present in a graphene-based device. Furthermore, we find that the junction thermopower is largely dominated by an intrinsic term independently of the spin-orbit potential scattering. We discuss the possibility of canceling the intrinsic thermopower by resolving the Seebeck coefficient in the subband space. This causes unbalanced populations of electronic modes which can be tuned with external gate voltages or applied temperature biases.
We consider an interacting quantum dot working as a coherent source of single
electrons. The dot is tunnel coupled to a reservoir and capacitively coupled to
a gate terminal with an applied ac potential. At low frequencies, this is the
quantum analog of the RC circuit with a purely dynamical response. We
investigate the quantized dynamics as a consequence of ac pulses with large
amplitude. Within a Keldysh-Green function formalism we derive the
time-dependent current in the Coulomb blockade regime. Our theory thus extends
previous models that considered either noninteracting electrons in nonlinear
response or interacting electrons in the linear regime. We prove that the
electron emission and absorption resonances undergo a splitting when the
charging energy is larger than the tunnel broadening. For very large charging
energies, the additional peaks collapse and the original resonances are
recovered, though with a reduced amplitude. Quantization of the charge emitted
by the capacitor is reduced due to Coulomb repulsion and additional plateaus
arise. Additionally, we discuss the differential capacitance and resistance as
a function of time. We find that to leading order in driving frequency the
current can be expressed as a weighted sum of noninteracting currents shifted
by the charging energy.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. Minor changes. Published versio
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