2006/02/01 by L. Borda, Borda, L., G. Zarand +3 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Semiconductor Quantum Structures and Devices #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0602019
4+ pages, 3 figures
openalex publication_date 2006/02/01 · arxiv created 2006/02/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the transport properties of a quantum dot (QD) with highly resistive gate electrodes, and show that the QD displays a quantum phase transition analogous to the famous dissipative phase transition first identified by S. Chakravarty [Phys. Rev. Lett. \bf 49, 681 (1982)]; for a review see [A. J. Leggett \em et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. \bf 59, 1 (1987)]. At temperature T=0, the charge on the central island of a conventional QD changes smoothly as a function of gate voltage, due to quantum fluctuations. However, for sufficiently large gate resistance charge fluctuations on the island can freeze out even at the degeneracy point, causing the charge on the island to change in sharp steps as a function of gate voltage. For Rg<RC the steps remain smeared out by quantum fluctuations. The Coulomb blockade peaks in conductance display anomalous scaling at intermediate temperatures, and at very low temperatures a sharp step develops in the QD conductance.