Shuttle Mechanism for Charge Transfer in Coulomb Blockade Nanostructures
Abstract
Room-temperature Coulomb blockade of charge transport through composite nanostructures containing organic inter-links has recently been observed. A pronounced charging effect in combination with the softness of the molecular links implies that charge transfer gives rise to a significant deformation of these structures. For a simple model system containing one nanoscale metallic cluster connected by molecular links to two bulk metallic electrodes we show that self-excitation of periodic cluster oscillations in conjunction with sequential processes of cluster charging and decharging appears for a sufficiently large bias voltage. This new `electron shuttle' mechanism of discrete charge transfer gives rise to a current through the nanostructure, which is proportional to the cluster vibration frequency.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9711196,
title = {Shuttle Mechanism for Charge Transfer in Coulomb Blockade Nanostructures},
author = {L. Y. Gorelik and A. Isacsson and M. V. Voinova and B. Kasemo and R. I. Shekhter and M. Jonson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9711196},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 4 figures