Universality and quantization of the power-to-heat ratio in nanogranular systems

Chtchelkatchev, N. M.; Glatz, Andreas; Beloborodov, I. S.

doi:10.1103/physrevb.88.125130

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The device shown in Fig. 1 is a standard Single Electron Transistor (SET) [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] with one important exception: electrons tunnel through ferroelectric insulating layers. The tunnel junctions between the nanograin and the electrodes form the capacitors with ferroelectric filling (see equivalent electric circuit Fig.…”

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Interplay of ferroelectricity and single electron tunneling

et al. 2014

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We investigate the interplay of ferroelectricity and quantum electron transport at the nanoscale in the regime of Coulomb blockade. Ferroelectric polarization in this case is no longer the external parameter but should be self-consistently calculated along with electron hopping probabilities leading to new physical transport phenomena studying in this paper. These phenomena appear mostly due to effective screening of a grain electric field by ferroelectric environment rather than due to polarization dependent tunneling probabilities. At small bias voltages polarization can be switched by a single excess electron in the grain. In this case transport properties of SET exhibit the instability (memory effect).PACS numbers: 72.80.Tm,77.84.Lf Systems with ferroelectric (FE) elements attract much of attention due to their interesting fundamental properties at the nanoscale as well as due to their possible applications in microelectronics, especially in nonvolatile memory devices, in emerging technologies of Terahertz-detecting and in building of advanced (nano)capacitors.1-14 In quantum junctions the ferroelectricity influences electron transport: Tunneling through the FE barriers shows giant electro-resistance effect caused by the strong dependence of electron tunneling probability on the FE polarization and external bias orientations.7,15 Here we focus on the inverse processthe influence of electron transport on ferroelectricity. 2,10The naive guess would be that a single electron, small quantum object, can slightly influence the macroscopic effect -ferroelectricity. However, we show that this is not quite true and discuss the interplay of ferroelectricity and quantum electron transport at the nanoscale in the regime of Coulomb blockade. Polarization in this case is no longer the external parameter but should be self-consistently calculated along with electron hopping probabilities leading to new physical transport phenomena studying in this paper. These phenomena appear mostly due to effective screening of a grain electric field by ferroelectric environment rather than due to polarization dependent tunneling probabilities.Ferroelectrics (FE) are characterized by the polarization P whose direction and magnitude can be changed by applying an external electric field E larger than the ferroelectric switching field, E s . The ground ferroelectric state of a bulk sample is usually not uniformly polarized but divided into domains to lower the electrostatic energy, like in ferromagnets. 16At the nanoscale to influence the polarization of (nano)ferroelectric one can apply strong enough bias to nanotips:2 There is a well developed technique of imaging and control of domain structures in ferroelectric thin films by a tip of a scanning probe microscope, see, e.g., Refs. 2,7,10,[17][18][19] Here we show how ferroelectric polarization switching can be produced by placing a single excess electron at the nanograin. Charged metal particle creates a strong enough electric field, E ≈ 1 MV/cm around it. Numerous ferroelectric (nano)...

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Interplay of ferroelectricity and single electron tunneling

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“…In the leading order the probability per unit time to change the island occupation number from n to n ± 1 through the first junction is given by the Fermi golden rule 27 R 1 is the tunnelling bare resistance and ∆F n→n±1 1 denotes the free energy change with Q 0 being the effective charge ∆F n→n±1…”

Section: First Order Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory effect in a ferroelectric single-electron transistor: Violation of conductance periodicity in the gate voltage

et al. 2014

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The fundamental property of most single-electron devices with quasicontinuous quasiparticle spectrum on the island is the periodicity of their transport characteristics in the gate voltage. This property is robust even with respect to placing the ferroelectric insulators in the source and drain tunnel junctions. We show that placing the ferroelectric inside the gate capacitance breaks this periodicity. The current-voltage characteristics of this SET strongly depends on the ferroelectric polarization and shows the giant memory-effect even for negligible ferroelectric hysteresis making this device promising for memory applications.

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Statistics of energy dissipation in a quantum dot operating in the cotunneling regime

2014

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At Coulomb blockade valleys inelastic cotunneling processes generate particle-hole excitations in quantum dots (QDs), and lead to energy dissipation. We have analyzed the probability distribution function (PDF) of energy dissipated in a QD due to such processes during a given time interval. We obtained analytically the cumulant generating function, and extracted the average, variance and Fano factor. The latter diverges as T 3 /(eV ) 2 at bias eV smaller than the temperature T , and reaches the value 3eV /5 in the opposite limit. The PDF is further studied numerically. As expected, Crooks fluctuation relation is not fulfilled by the PDF. Our results can be verified experimentally utilizing transport measurements of charge.PACS numbers: 73.23. Hk, 73.63.Kv, 42.50.Lc Thermal properties of nano-structures are of profound importance, inasmuch as they are manifestations of the dynamics of the particle zoo inside them. The latter includes electrons, phonons, photons, and other (quasi)particles, depending on the system and its surrounding environment. At the same time, understanding thermal characteristics and gaining the ability to manipulate them will facilitate higher control over nanocircuits, which is at the heart of technological advances. Importantly, it may push forward the effort towards finding sustainable energy resources.As a consequence, recently there has been a growing interest in thermal aspects of nano-structures 1 . For instance, thermoelectricity in semiconductor nanostructures is investigated in Ref. [2]. The validity of the Wiedemann-Franz law in several mesoscopic systems is studied in Refs. [3]. The temperature of nano-structures is analyzed in Refs. [4]. Verification of the recently discovered non-equilibrium fluctuation relations 5 in the context of heat is reported in Refs. [6 and 7]. Energy relaxation in a quantum dot (QD), which is a pillar in the study of nano-electronic systems, is investigated in Ref. [8]. It was found there that half of the Jouleheating produced in transport is due to energy dissipation through the QD. Importantly, there are physical phenomena which are not fully accessible by charge related measurements. As an example we note the recently observed neutral modes in the fractional quantum Hall regime 9 , whose characterization may require thermometry 10 .Here we study the statistical properties of energy dissipated in a QD 11 tuned to be in a Coulomb blockade valley. In this regime sequential tunneling processes are mostly suppressed, and cotunneling processes play a leading role in transport. Cotunneling is a many-body coherent process, where electrons are transferred from one lead to another via a virtual (classically forbidden) state in the QD 12 . We are interested in the "inelastic" contribution, where a "trace" is left on the QD in the form of FIG. 1. Left: An equivalent circuit representing a quantum dot (QD) (the region bounded by the three capacitors c1, c2 and cg, marked by a blue rectangle) tunnel-coupled to two leads with potentials VL and VR. The energy le...

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Universality and quantization of the power-to-heat ratio in nanogranular systems

Cited by 4 publications

References 40 publications

Interplay of ferroelectricity and single electron tunneling

Interplay of ferroelectricity and single electron tunneling

Memory effect in a ferroelectric single-electron transistor: Violation of conductance periodicity in the gate voltage

Statistics of energy dissipation in a quantum dot operating in the cotunneling regime

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