Inelastic cotunneling through a long diffusive wire

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that inelastic cotunneling dominates electron transport in long diffusive wires at low temperatures and voltages, leading to power-law conductance behavior contrary to traditional Coulomb anomaly predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a new understanding of inelastic cotunneling effects in diffusive wires, explaining power-law conductance dependence observed experimentally.

Findings

Power-law conductance dependence on temperature and voltage

Exponent proportional to contact distance

Contrasts with Coulomb anomaly theory predictions

Abstract

We show that electron transport through a long multichannel wire, connected to leads by tunnel junctions, at low temperatures and voltages is dominated by inelastic cotunnelling. This mechanism results in experimentally observed power-law dependence of conductance on temperature and voltage, in the diffusive regime where usual Coulomb anomaly theory leads to exponentially low conductance. The power-law exponent is proportional to the distance between contacts.