2006/10/13 by Maxim Vavilov, M. G. Vavilov, A. Douglas Stone +1 · 4 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Conductor #Current (fluid) #Electrical conductor #Electrical engineering #Electron #Materials science #Mathematics #Mesoscopic physics #Photon #Photovoltaic system #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantization (signal processing) #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum dot #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Semiconductor Quantum Structures and Devices #Thermal #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.97.216801
published in Physical Review Letters 97(21), 216801 (American Physical Society) · 4 pages, 2 figures
arxiv created 2006/10/13 · openalex publication_date 2006/11/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We extend the analysis of the effects of electromagnetic (EM) fields on mesoscopic conductors to include the effects of field quantization, motivated by recent experiments on circuit QED. We show that in general there is a photovoltaic (PV) current induced by quantized cavity modes at zero bias across the conductor. This current depends on the average photon occupation number and vanishes identically when it is equal to the average number of thermal electron-hole pairs. We analyze in detail the case of a chaotic quantum dot at temperature Te in contact with a thermal EM field at temperature Tf, calculating the rms size of the PV current as a function of the temperature difference, finding an effect approximately pA.