Unified description of charge transfer mechanisms and vibronic dynamics in nanoscale junctions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a unified framework for analyzing charge transfer and vibronic dynamics in nanoscale junctions, bridging quantum transport and quantum optics perspectives, with non-perturbative results in electron-phonon interactions.

Contribution

It presents a novel, comprehensive approach that unifies counting statistics of fermionic charges and bosonic phonons in nanoscale systems, applicable to molecular junctions.

Findings

Derived non-perturbative results in the tunnel limit

Unified rate equations and Green function approaches

Applied framework to molecular junctions

Abstract

We propose a general framework that unifies the point of view of counting statistics of transmitted (fermionic) charges as it is commonly used in the quantum transport community to the point of view of counting statics of phonons (bosons) as it is known from the field of quantum optics. As a particular example, we study on the same footing the counting statistics of electrons transfered through a molecular junction and the corresponding population dynamics of the associated molecular vibrational mode. In the tunnel limit, non-perturbative results in the electron-phonon interaction are derived that unify complementary approaches based on rate equations or on the use of non-equilibrium Green functions.