Low temperature transport in tunnel junction arrays: Cascade energy relaxation
arXiv:1003.6105 · doi:10.1007/978-94-007-0044-4_3
Abstract
A theory of far-from-equilibrium transport in arrays of tunnel junctions is developed. We show that at low temperatures the energy relaxation ensuring tunneling current can become a cascade two-stage process. First, charge carriers lose their energy to a bosonic environment via non-phonon energy exchange. The role of such an environment can be taken by electromagnetic fluctuations or dipole excitations (electron-hole pairs). The environment, in its turn, relaxes the energy to the thermostat by means of phonon irradiation. We derive the current-voltage characteristics for the arrays and demonstrate that opening the energy gap in the spectrum of the environmental excitations completely suppresses the tunneling current. The consequences of the cascade relaxation in various physical systems are discussed.
20 pages, 3 figures
References in corpus (9)
- Disorder-Induced Inhomogeneities of the Superconducting State Close to the Superconductor-Insulator Transition
- Localized Superconductivity in the Quantum-Critical Region of the Disorder-Driven Superconductor-Insulator Transition in TiN Thin Films
- Recombination limited energy relaxation in a BCS superconductor
- Jumps in current-voltage characteristics in disordered films
- Collective transport in the insulating state of Josephson junction arrays
- Hyperactivated resistance in TiN films on the insulating side of the disorder-driven superconductor-insulator transition
- Full Counting Statistics and Field Theory
- Hierarchical energy relaxation in mesoscopic tunnel junctions: Effect of nonequilibrium environment on low-temperature transport
- Nonequilibrium electrons in tunnel structures under high-voltage injection