Effects of electron-phonon interaction on quantum transport through single molecule transistor

Abstract

The effects of the electron-phonon interaction on the nonequilibrium transport through a single molecule transistor or certain quantum dots are systematically studied, with focus on the quantum resonant tunneling, Kondo effect, and Fano effect. We find that the broken particle-hole symmetry in such system can be identified from the phonon sidebands in the spectral function at very low temperature. In the Kondo regime, two types of Kondo phonon-satellites with different asymmetric shapes are distinguished and related to the electron or hole spin-singlet, respectively. Since phonon acts as a "which way" detector, the phonon-assisted tunneling channel has no Fano interference with the reference electronic channel. © 2007 American Institute of Physics.