Tunneling current induced phonon generation in nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper investigates how tunneling currents in nanostructures can generate phonons, analyzing the conditions for strong vibrations and their dependence on applied bias, with a self-consistent transport theory for high excitation levels.

Contribution

It introduces a self-consistent theory for tunneling transport under high phonon excitation in nanostructures with coupled electron states.

Findings

Identification of conditions for strong phonon vibrations

Dependence of phonon occupation on applied bias

Development of a self-consistent transport model

Abstract

We analyze generation of phonons in tunneling structures with two electron states coupled by electron-phonon interaction. The conditions of strong vibration excitations are determined and dependence of non-equilibrium phonon occupation numbers on the applied bias is found. For high vibration excitation levels self consistent theory for the tunneling transport is presented.