New insights from electron-phonon

interaction in the Anderson-

Holstein model

Ph.D. Defence seminar

Bitan De
Supervisor: Dr. Bhaskaran Muralidharan
Dept. of Electrical Engineering , IIT Bombay
31 October, 2019
 Brief background and motivation

Coulomb blockade

Molecular junction Nature (London) 395, 371 (2004)

Phys. Rev. B 76 , 085433 (2007)
Thermoelectric power generator in nanoscale
• A quantum dot (zero-
dimensional) system
sandwiched between
two metallic contacts.

• A thermal bias applied

across the contacts will
create an open circuit
Phys rev B 85, 155423 voltage VS.

• The device will work as

power generator in the
range [0,VS]

Nature Nanotechnology 9, 881, 2014

The effect of electron-electron interaction

Phys Rev B 85, 155423 (2012)

The effect of electron phonon coupling

Phys Rev B 82, 045412, 2010

An external thermal body: can it play a role?
The description of device
 The system Hamiltonian

The dot Hamiltonian The Contact-dot tunneling

Hamiltonian

The contact Hamiltonian

The Bath-dot phonon
transition Hamiltonian

The Bath Hamiltonian

The Lang-Firsov transformation and transport
methodology

electron fock space

electron-phonon fock space

 Deriving rate equation

Electron tunneling from contact to Electron tunneling from dot to contact

dot

Bath assisted phonon relaxation

Bath assisted phonon absorption
 Calculation of charge, heat current

Master equation Electron heat current

Electron charge current Phonon heat current

Power-efficiency trade-off when phonons are
in non-equilibrium
Frank-condon blockade : The effect of λ
 The effect of U
N-type setup P-type setup
The effect of an external phonon
bath
Hot bath

Cold bath
Direction of phonon heat current
The trade-off between contact β and bath β
 ArXiv:1605.09195

Physical Review B 94 ,2016

Electron assisted phonon generation

Phonon
Generation

Phonon
Extraction
Phonon Peltier effect

Phonon current expression

Phonon removal rate

Phonon Peltier effect

Dot temperature expression

Peltier Coefficient expression

Inference
• Dependence of phonon current on voltage bias in the absence of
thermal gradient.
• In interacting picture, phonon Peltier effect is evident.
• Phonon accumulation in the dot leads to the deviation of molecular
temperature from the bath temperature and gives rise to phonon
cooling.
Electron induced phonon switch

❑ We keep the voltage constant and vary the electron-

phonon interaction.
❑ An intermediate value of interaction keeps the
switch ON.
❑ The ON region of switching can be broadened by
incrementing the phonon sidebands in the voltage
window.
Published: Scientific Reports 8, 5185 2018
 Description of the setup

❑ The circuit diagram shows that charge current can be stimulated by applying either voltage bias
or electronic temperature gradient.
❑ Hence, there are 2 ways of creating charge induced phonon flow. (1) Voltage bias or (2) electronic temperature bias.
 Non-linear voltage induced
phonon flow

❑ The phonon flow due to voltage bias when ΔTel=0 and ΔTph=0. It shows that electron-
phonon interaction parameter λ is the stimulus the phonon flow.
❑ In linear regime qV/kT<<1, phonon current is flat with voltage. Hence L31=0. It can be
shown that L13=0. This validates Onsager’s symmetry.
 Non-linear charge induced phonon
flow by ΔTel

❑ The phonon flow due to ΔTel, when V=0 and ΔTph=0. It shows that electron-phonon
interaction parameter λ is initiating the phonon flow.
❑ In the linear regime ΔTel/T<<1, phonon current is flat with voltage. Hence L32=0. It can
be shown that L23=0. This validates Onsager’s symmetry.
Phonon flow is consistent with <Nph>

Accumulation of Absorption of phonons

phonons in dot in dot
❑ In case of voltage bias 1 electron probability increases with voltage whereas in case of temperature bias 1 electron
probability decreases with ΔTel. The trend is just reverse for 0 electron probability.
❑ Hence in two cases the phonon flow in opposite direction.
❑ Both 0 and 1 electron probability remain invariant with voltage and electronic temperature bias , hence there is
no response in the linear regime.
 Observation
➢Non-linear phonon flow is feasible without phonon temperature
gradient. It can be created either by voltage gradient or by
electronic temperature gradient.
➢However there is no response in linear regime and Onsager’s
symmetry is validated.
➢The direction of phonon flow created by voltage and ΔTel is opposite
to each other.
Electron and phonon Peltier (Non-
linear)
 Electronic Peltier asymmetry

❑ Electronic Peltier is independent of λ.

❑ The electron current is anti-symmetric but electronic heat current is asymmetric with voltage.
❑ Electronic Peltier is asymmetric with voltage.
 Phonon Peltier anti-symmetry

❑ Phonon Peltier is strong function of λ.

❑ The phonon heat current is symmetric with voltage and electron current is anti-symmetric.
❑ Phonon Peltier is anti-symmetric with voltage.
Electron and phonon thermal
conductivity (Non-linear)
 Constant electronic thermal conductivity

❑Electronic thermal conductivity is almost constant. With electronic temperature gradient.

❑It is also independent of λ

Electron induced Phonon thermal conductivity
 Observations
❑ Both electron Peltier and electron thermal conductivity is independent of electron-phonon interaction.

❑ We propose two new parameter (1) Phonon Peltier (2) electron induced phonon thermal conductivity.

❑ Both the quantity nullifies as λ=0. Both of them increases as we increase λ.

❑ In the weak coupling limit of phonons the phonon transport coefficients are much smaller
as compared to the electron transport coefficients.

❑ Since both the coefficients are zero in the linear regime and appear only in the non-linear regime
, we call the coefficients non-linear coefficients.
Equilibrium with thermal
Bath
Non-equilibrium
Engineering phonon flow with
bath by voltage

Hot Hot

COLD COLD
Engineering phonon flow with bath
by ΔTel

Hot Hot

COLD COLD
Engineering of electronic heat
current

HOT reservoir case

❑ In the HOT reservoir case, reservoir pump

phonons into the dot and dissipate electronic
heat current into the leads.

❑ This happens even when voltage is zero.

Engineering of electronic heat
current

COLD reservoir case

❑ In the COLD reservoir case, reservoir extract
phonons out of the dot and the leads pump in
electronic heat current into the dot.

❑ This happens even when voltage is zero.

Effect of contact asymmetry
Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 32, 035305, 2019
 Future Directions

Transport in Cavity-coupled Phonon induced gain

quantum dot
PRL 113, 036801, 2014 enhancement
Thank you