title: Interplay of charge and heat transport in a nano-junction in the out-of-equilibrium cotunneling regime.
abstract: We study the charge transport and heat transfer through a nano-junction composed of a small metallic grain weakly coupled to two metallic leads. We focus on the cotunneling regime out-of-equilibrium, where the bias voltage and the temperature gradient between the leads strongly drive electron and phonon degrees of freedom in the grain, which in turn have a strong feedback on the transport through the grain. We derive and solve the heat balance equation for electron and phonon degrees of freedom in the grain and self-consistently find the current-voltage characteristics. We demonstrate that the transport in the nano-junction is very sensitive to the spectrum of the bosonic modes in the grain.
authors.affiliation: Institute for High Pressure Physics, Russian Academy of Science, Troitsk 142190, Russia.
authors.forename: N M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Chtchelkatchev
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Glatz
authors.forename: I S
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Beloborodov
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004563:Electrochemistry; D004583:Electrons; D006358:Hot Temperature; D015233:Models, Statistical; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D036103:Nanotechnology; D053770:Nanowires / Q000737:chemistry*; D011789:Quantum Theory; D013696:Temperature; D013816:Thermodynamics