Stepwise and Hysteretic Transport Behavior of an Electromechanical Charge Shuttle

Tuominen, Mark; Krotkov, R.; Breuer, M.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.83.3025

Cited by 43 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Examples include tunneling through moving barriers, 6 additional sources of noise, 7 and shuttling mechanism for transport. [8][9][10] Studies with NEMS have mostly been performed in devices made with silicon technology. Carbon nanotubes provide an interesting alternative because of their superior mechanical properties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon nanotubes as nanoelectromechanical systems

et al. 2003

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We theoretically study the interplay between electrical and mechanical properties of suspended, doubly clamped carbon nanotubes in which charging effects dominate. In this geometry, the capacitance between the nanotube and the gate͑s͒ depends on the distance between them. This dependence modifies the usual Coulomb models and we show that it needs to be incorporated to capture the physics of the problem correctly. We find that the tube position changes in discrete steps every time an electron tunnels onto it. Edges of Coulomb diamonds acquire a ͑small͒ curvature. We also show that bistability in the tube position occurs and that tunneling of an electron onto the tube drastically modifies the quantized eigenmodes of the tube. Experimental verification of these predictions is possible in suspended tubes of sub-micron length.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon nanotubes as nanoelectromechanical systems

et al. 2003

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“…(4) we use Eq. (2). From this expression one can observe that the dc current between the leads is defined by the correlations between the velocity and the population of the dot.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Since then, the shuttle phenomenon has been a subject of intensive experimental and theoretical research. [2][3][4][5][6][7] The main feature of the orthodox shuttle phenomenon is that a constant potential difference, applied between two fixed electrodes, leads to a dynamical instability that causes the metal nanoparticle to oscillate. As a consequence, a dc current through the system, induced by the voltage drop between the electrodes, becomes proportional to the frequency of the mechanical oscillations 1 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Parametric excitation of dc current in a single-dot shuttle system via spontaneous symmetry breaking

2013

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We investigate theoretically the dynamics of a spatially symmetric shuttle system subjected to an ac gate voltage. We demonstrate that in such a system parametric excitation gives rise to mechanical vibrations when the frequency of the ac signal is close to the eigenfrequency of the mechanical subsystem. These mechanical oscillations result in a dc shuttle current in a certain direction due to spontaneous symmetry breaking. The direction of the current is determined by the phase shift between the ac gate voltage and the parametrically excited mechanical oscillations. The dependence of the shuttle current on the dc gate voltage is also analyzed. Some years ago, a novel form of electron transport-a shuttle mechanism-based on the mechanical vibrations of a metallic nanoparticle coupled to two electrodes via elastic molecular links was proposed in Ref. 1. Since then, the shuttle phenomenon has been a subject of intensive experimental and theoretical research. [2][3][4][5][6][7] The main feature of the orthodox shuttle phenomenon is that a constant potential difference, applied between two fixed electrodes, leads to a dynamical instability that causes the metal nanoparticle to oscillate. As a consequence, a dc current through the system, induced by the voltage drop between the electrodes, becomes proportional to the frequency of the mechanical oscillations 1 . The idea of shuttle phenomena was also extended to the quantum realm [8][9][10][11] . Nanoelectromechanical shuttle systems have been also studied in the regime of ac excitation and several interesting effects on the transport properties and the dynamics of the shuttle system have been found [12][13][14][15][16] . In particular, a shuttle structure driven by a time-dependent bias voltage has been considered in Refs. 17 and 18. It was shown that in case of asymmetric configuration such a setup can act as a rectifier, where the intensity of the dc current depends on the ratio between the frequency of the external oscillating voltage and the eigenfrequency of the mechanical subsystem. Current rectification was also conjectured by Ahn et al. 19 (and experimentally verified by Kim et al. 20 ) for the case of a symmetric double-shuttle structure. They attributed current-rectification phenomena to spontaneous symmetry breaking in the system caused by parametric instability. One of the conclusions of this work is that dynamical symmetry breaking in single shuttle systems does not lead to a dc current. Parametric excitation of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) has been also considered in Refs. 21-23.In the present work, we investigate the possibility to generate a shuttle dc current, rather than rectifying current, in a completely symmetric single-dot shuttle system. We demonstrate that, in this scheme, despite the lack of a bias voltage, a shuttle dc current can still be detected. This charge transport is achieved by applying an ac voltage to a gate electrode which controls the electronic population of a metallic island and, in this form, also the stiffness of the...

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“…Since current through that system is accompanied by charging of the grain, interplay between the Coulomb forces and the mechanical degrees of freedom can lead to self oscillations of the grain and electrons can be seen as shuttled across the gap between the leads. Experimental shuttle related work has been reported on cantilevers that work as flexible tunneling contacts [7,8,9], singlemolecule transistors [10], colloidal particle systems [11], and macroscopic shuttle systems [12]. Theoretical work has included different aspects of classical shuttle systems [6,13,14,15,16], some noise and accuracy considerations [17,18], different aspects of quantum mechanical shuttle models [19,20,21,22,23,24], and shuttling of Cooper pairs in a superconducting shuttle system [25,26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of van der Waals forces on the classical shuttle instability

Nord

Isacsson

2004

Phys. Rev. B

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The effects of including the van der Waals interaction in the modelling of the single electron shuttle have been investigated numerically. It is demonstrated that the relative strength of the vdW-forces and the elastic restoring forces determine the characteristics of the shuttle instability. In the case of weak elastic forces and low voltages the grain is trapped close to one lead, and this trapping can be overcome by Coulomb forces by applying a bias voltage V larger than a threshold voltage Vu. This allows for grain motion leading to an increase in current by several orders of magnitude above the transition voltage Vu. Associated with the process is also hysteresis in the I-V characteristics.

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Stepwise and Hysteretic Transport Behavior of an Electromechanical Charge Shuttle

Cited by 43 publications

References 6 publications

Carbon nanotubes as nanoelectromechanical systems

Carbon nanotubes as nanoelectromechanical systems

Parametric excitation of dc current in a single-dot shuttle system via spontaneous symmetry breaking

Impact of van der Waals forces on the classical shuttle instability

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