title: Cotunneling-mediated transport through excited states in the Coulomb-blockade regime.
abstract: We present finite-bias transport measurements on a few-electron quantum dot. In the Coulomb-blockade regime, strong signatures of inelastic cotunneling occur which can directly be assigned to excited states observed in the nonblockaded regime. In addition, we observe structures related to sequential tunneling through the dot, occurring after it has been excited by an inelastic cotunneling process. We explain our findings using transport calculations within the real-time Green's function approach, including diagrams up to fourth order in the tunneling matrix elements.
authors.affiliation: Solid State Physics Laboratory, ETH Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schleser
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ihn
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ruh
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ensslin
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tews
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pfannkuche
authors.forename: D C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Driscoll
authors.forename: A C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Gossard