Franck–Condon blockade in suspended carbon nanotube quantum dots

By R. Leturcq, Christoph Stampfer, K. Inderbitzin, L. Durrer, Christofer Hierold, E. Mariani, M. Schultz, F. von Oppen, Klaus Ensslin. 2008

247 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Understanding the influence of vibrational motion of the atoms on electronic transitions in molecules constitutes a cornerstone of quantum physics, as epitomized by the Franck–Condon principle1, 2 of spectroscopy. Recent advances in building molecular-electronics devices3 and nanoelectromechanical systems4 open a new arena for studying the interaction between mechanical and electronic degrees of freedom in transport at the single-molecule level. The tunnelling of electrons through molecules or suspended quantum dots5, 6 has been shown to excite vibrational modes, or vibrons6, 7, 8, 9. Beyond this effect, theory predicts that strong electron–vibron coupling strongly suppresses the current flow at low biases, a collective behaviour known as Franck–Condon blockade10, 11. Here, we show measurements on quantum dots formed in suspended single-wall carbon nanotubes revealing a remarkably large electron–vibron coupling that, owing to the high quality and unprecedented tunability of our samples, allow a quantitative analysis of vibron-mediated electronic transport in the regime of strong electron–vibron coupling. This enables us to unambiguously demonstrate the Franck–Condon blockade in a suspended nanostructure. The large observed electron–vibron coupling could ultimately be a key ingredient for the detection of quantized mechanical motion12, 13. It also emphasizes the unique potential for nanoelectromechanical device applications based on suspended graphene sheets and carbon nanotubes.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/395254a82851a5332bcfcdab5335dd765f077a64

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. Herre S. J. van der Zant
2. Menno Poot
3. F. Evers
4. J. V. van Ruitenbeek
5. Richard Koryt'ar
6. S. Tewari
7. Rui Huang
8. Qiang Lu

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

1. Menno Poot
2. F. Evers
3. J. V. van Ruitenbeek
4. Richard Koryt'ar
5. Herre S. J. van der Zant
6. S. Tewari

In Materials Chemistry

1. Herre S. J. van der Zant
2. Menno Poot
3. F. Evers
4. J. V. van Ruitenbeek
5. A. Castellanos-Gómez
6. G. Steele
7. Rui Huang
8. Qiang Lu

Citations in the corpus

• Quantum transport in carbon nanotubes (2014, unknown): “By selectively etching the substrate underneath the nanotube, suspended devices can also be fabricated (Leturcq et al., 2009).”
• Mechanical systems in the quantum regime (2011, background): “hononblockadeof transport. Phonon blockade has been observed in suspended quantum dots embedded in a freestanding GaAs/AlGaAs membrane [332] and subsequently in suspended carbon nanotube quantum dots [333]. Recently, is has been shown that inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS) can also be”
• Advances and challenges in single-molecule electron transport (2019, background): “In the context of nanoscale devices, FCB was first observed in carbon nanotubes (Leturcq et al., 2009), where, quite remarkably, the blockade survives over several charge states N .”