Cotunneling, current blockade, and backaction forces in nanobeams close to the Euler buckling instability

Abstract

Single-electron transistors embedded in a vibrating nanoresonator such as a doubly-clamped carbon nanotube exhibit effects stemming from the coupling between electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom. In particular, a capacitive electromechanical coupling induces a blockade of the current at low bias voltage. It has been recently shown theoretically within a sequential-tunneling approximation that this current blockade can be enhanced by orders of magnitude when the suspended structure is brought to the Euler buckling instability. Here, we investigate the role of cotunneling on the predicted enhancement and show that the latter is not suppressed by cotunneling effects. We further demonstrate that despite the fact that the current blockade is difficult to measure far from the Euler instability, the backaction of the current flow on the nanobeam frequency may be easier to observe.

11 pages, 7 figures; published version

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Current-induced forces in mesoscopic systems: a scattering matrix approach
• Probing nonlinear mechanical effects through electronic currents: the case of a nanomechanical resonator acting as electronic transistor
• Magnetic effects on nonlinear mechanical properties of a suspended carbon nanotube
• Large current noise in nanoelectromechanical systems close to continuous mechanical instabilities