Nonequilibrium inelastic electronic transport: Polarization effects and vertex corrections to the self-consistent Born approximation

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We study the effect of electron-vibron interactions on the inelastic transport properties of single-molecule nanojunctions. We use the nonequilibrium Green's functions technique and a model Hamiltonian to calculate the effects of second-order diagrams [double-exchange (DX) and dressed-phonon (DPH) diagrams] on the electron-vibration interaction and consider their effects across the full range of parameter space. The DX diagram, corresponding to a vertex correction, introduces an effective dynamical renormalization of the electron-vibron coupling in both the purely inelastic and the inelastic-resonant features of the inelastic electron tunneling spectrum. The purely inelastic features correspond to an applied bias around the energy of a vibron, while the inelastic-resonant features correspond to peaks (resonance) in the conductance. The DPH diagram affects only the inelastic resonant features. We also discuss the circumstances in which the second-order diagrams may be approximated in the study of more complex model systems.

Original languageEnglish
Article number085433
Pages (from-to)1-9
Number of pages9
JournalPhysical Review B
Volume84
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Aug 2011

Keywords

  • CURRENT-VOLTAGE CHARACTERISTICS
  • TUNNELING SPECTROSCOPY
  • MOLECULAR JUNCTIONS
  • CHARGE-TRANSPORT
  • CONDUCTANCE
  • WIRES
  • TRANSISTORS
  • MICROSCOPY
  • SCALE
  • RULES

Cite this