2008/11/30 by Ioan Bâldea, Ioan Baldea, Horst Köppel +1 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #cond-mat.other #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.79.165317
published as Phys. Rev. B 79, 165317 (2009)
arxiv created 2009/03/16 · openalex publication_date 2009/04/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report theoretical results demonstrating that photoionization can be a useful tool for investigating single-electron transistors. It permits to obtain information on the quantum dot occupancy and the charging energy in a direct manner, and not indirectly, as done in transport experiments. It is worth emphasizing that in the photoionization processes considered by us, an electron absorbs a photon with energy of the order of the work functions (\ensuremath∼1 eV) and is ejected into the vacuum. This phenomenon is completely different from the widely investigated photoassisted tunneling. There, an electron tunnels through a Coulomb island from one electrode to another by absorbing a photon of much lower energy of the order of the charging energy (typically, a few meV). Suggestions are given on how to conduct experiments using photoionization alone or in combination with transport measurements. Monitoring zero kinetic-energy (ZEKE) photoelectrons is especially recommended because ZEKE spectroscopy offers a better resolution than the standard photoemission.