Photovoltaic effect in bent quantum wires

Abstract

We propose a scheme for the generation of photocurrent in bent quantum wires. We calculate the current using a generalized Landauer-Buttiker approach that takes into account the electromagnetic radiation. For circularly polarized light, we find that the curvature in the bent wire induces an asymmetry in the scattering coefficients for left and right moving electrons. This asymmetry results in a current at zero bias voltage. The effect is due to the geometry of the wire which transforms the photon angular momentum into translational motion for the electrons.

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Quantum transport in a curved one-dimensional quantum wire with spin-orbit interactions
• Curvature effects on surface electron states in ballistic nanostructures
• Coupling curvature to a uniform magnetic field; an analytic and numerical study
• Photovoltaic Effect on Molecule Coupled Ferromagnetic Films of a Magnetic Tunnel Junction
• Nanohelices as superlattices: Bloch oscillations and electric dipole transitions
• Radiation-induced current in quantum wires with side-coupled nano-rings