title: Charge transport-induced recoil and dissociation in double quantum dots.
abstract: Colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) are free-standing nanostructures with chemically tunable electronic properties. This combination of properties offers intriguing new possibilities for nanoelectromechanical devices that were not explored yet. In this work, we consider a new scanning tunneling microscopy setup for measuring ligand-mediated effective interdot forces and for inducing motion of individual CQDs within an array. Theoretical analysis of a double quantum dot structure within this setup reveals for the first time voltage-induced interdot recoil and dissociation with pronounced changes in the current. Considering realistic microscopic parameters, our approach enables correlating the onset of mechanical motion under bias voltage with the effective ligand-mediated binding forces.
authors.affiliation: Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, ‡the Lise Meitner Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, §Solid State Institute, and ∥Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology , Haifa 32000, Israel.
authors.forename: Roni
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pozner
authors.forename: Efrat
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lifshitz
authors.forename: Uri
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Peskin
keywords: Colloidal quantum dots; charge transport; double quantum dots; electromechanical response; scanning tunneling microscopy