Signatures of molecular correlations in the few-electron dynamics of coupled quantum dots

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Coulomb interactions influence the dynamics of few-electron states in coupled quantum dots, revealing how correlations affect oscillation frequencies and sensitivity to perturbations.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of electron dynamics considering Coulomb interactions and phonon scattering, highlighting the impact of correlations on oscillation behavior.

Findings

Single-frequency oscillations occur in uncorrelated or highly correlated states.

Multi-frequency oscillations appear in intermediate correlation regimes.

Coulomb interactions increase sensitivity of oscillations to spatial perturbations.

Abstract

We study the effect of Coulomb interaction on the few-electron dynamics in coupled semiconductor quantum dots by exact diagonalization of the few-body Hamiltonian. The oscillation of carriers is strongly affected by the number of confined electrons and by the strength of the interdot correlations. Single-frequency oscillations are found for either uncorrelated or highly correlated states, while multi-frequency oscillations take place in the intermediate regime. Moreover, Coulomb interaction renders few-particle oscillations sensitive to perturbations in spatial directions other than that of the tunneling, contrary to the single-particle case. The inclusion of acoustic phonon scattering does not modify the carrier dynamics substantially at short times, but can damp oscillation modes selectively at long times.