Transport characteristics of nanojunctions far-from-equilibrium

TL;DR

This paper investigates how tunneling transport in nanojunctions behaves far from equilibrium, revealing significant modifications to current-voltage characteristics due to dynamic Coulomb interactions and screening effects.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical model accounting for dynamic Coulomb interaction and screening, advancing understanding of far-from-equilibrium transport in nanojunctions.

Findings

Coulomb blockade effects are reduced under far-from-equilibrium conditions.

Dynamic screening significantly alters tunneling characteristics.

The model explains experimental observations in metallic nanojunctions.

Abstract

We study the tunneling transport through a nanojunction in the far-from-equilibrium regime at relatively low temperatures. We show that the current-voltage characteristics is significantly modified as compared to the usual quasi-equilibrium result by lifting the suppression due to the Coulomb blockade. These effects are important in realistic nanojunctions. We study the high-impedance case in detail to explain the underlying physics and construct a more realistic theoretical model for the case of a metallic junction taking into account dynamic Coulomb interaction. This dynamic screening further reduces the effect of the Coulomb blockade.