Quantifying the impact of phonon scattering on electrical and thermal transport in quantum dots

TL;DR

This paper extends a quantum dot transport simulation tool to include phonon scattering, enabling analysis of energy relaxation and power generation in quantum dot devices under various thermal conditions.

Contribution

It introduces phonon scattering into the QmeQ package, allowing for comprehensive modeling of quantum dot transport phenomena involving energy relaxation and thermal effects.

Findings

Phonon scattering significantly affects energy relaxation in double-dot systems.

Quantum dot power generation is influenced by phonon-induced heating.

The extended model accurately predicts transport behavior under thermal conditions.

Abstract

We report the inclusion of phonon scattering to our recently established numerical package QmeQ for transport in quantum dot systems. This enables straightforward calculations for a large variety of devices. As examples we show (i) transport in a double-dot structure, where energy relaxation is crucial to match the energy difference between the levels, and (ii) the generation of electrical power by contacting cold electric contacts with quantum dot states, which are subjected to heated phonons.