Coherent laser control of the current through molecular junctions

Abstract

The electron tunneling through a molecular junction modeled by a single site weakly coupled to two leads is studied in the presence of a time-dependent external field using a master equation approach. In the case of small bias voltages and high carrier frequencies of the external field, we observe the phenomenon of coherent destruction of tunneling, i.e. the current through the molecular junction vanishes completely for certain parameters of the external field. In previous studies the tunneling within isolated and open multi-site systems was suppressed; it is shown here that the tunneling between a single site and electronic reservoirs, i.e. the leads, can be suppressed as well. For larger bias voltages the current does not vanish any more since further tunneling channels participate in the electron conduction and we also observe photon-assisted tunneling which leads to steps in the current-voltage characteristics. The described phenomena are demonstrated not only for monochromatic fields but also for laser pulses and therefore could be used for ultrafast optical switching of the current through molecular junctions.

6 pages and 4 figures

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• The Driven Liouville von Neumann Equation in Lindblad Form
• Molecular wires acting as quantum heat ratchets
• Multielectron effects in high harmonic generation in N2 and benzene: simulation using a non-adiabatic quantum molecular dynamics approach for laser-molecule interactions
• Photoinduced current in molecular conduction junctions with semiconductor contacts
• Hierarchical quantum master equation approach to charge transport in molecular junctions with time-dependent molecule-lead coupling strengths
• Photon-assisted electronic and spin transport in a junction containing precessing molecular spin
• Photon-Assisted Tunneling through Molecular Conduction Junctions with Graphene Electrodes
• Molecular electronics in junctions with energy disorder
• Exploration of the memory effect on the photon-assisted tunneling via a single quantum dot: A generalized Floquet theoretical approach