Polaronic effects in electron shuttling

TL;DR

This paper investigates how polaronic effects influence electron shuttling in a vibrating quantum dot, revealing nonmonotonic behavior of shuttle instability due to competing vibron-assisted tunneling and polaronic blockade effects.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of polaronic effects on shuttle instability, highlighting the oscillatory behavior caused by the interplay of two opposing mechanisms.

Findings

Shuttle instability increment varies nonmonotonically with voltage.

Oscillations in instability are linked to vibron energy scale.

Polaronic blockade impacts electron transport dynamics.

Abstract

Shuttle-like mechanism of electron transport through a single level vibrating quantum dot is considered in the regime of strong electromechanical coupling. It is shown that the increment of shuttle instability is a nonmonotonic function of the driving voltage. The interplay of two oppositely acting effects - vibron-assisted electron tunneling and polaronic blockade - results in oscillations of the increment on the energy scale of vibron energy.