High temperature anomaly of the conductance of a tunnel junction

TL;DR

This paper investigates how quantum effects cause a conductance anomaly in tunnel junctions at high temperatures, revealing a nonanalytic reduction due to Coulomb blockade phenomena.

Contribution

It provides a nonperturbative analysis of tunnel junction conductance at high temperatures using path integral methods, highlighting quantum effects on classical conductance.

Findings

Conductance is reduced compared to classical predictions.

Quantum effects cause a nonanalytic dependence on environmental resistance.

High temperature Coulomb blockade manifests as conductance anomaly.

Abstract

The linear conductance of a tunnel junction in series with an ohmic resistor is determined in the high temperature limit. The tunneling current is treated nonperturbatively by means of path integral techniques. Due to quantum effects the conductance is smaller than the classical series conductance. The reduction factor is found to be nonanalytic in the environmental resistance for vanishing resistance. This behavior is a high temperature manifestation of the Coulomb blockade effect.