Title: Theory of nonequilibrium transient transport in nanostructures

Authors: Joseph Maciejko, Yu Zhu, Jian Wang, Hong Guo

Addresses: Department of Physics, Center for the Physics of Materials, McGill University, 3600 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 2T8, Canada. ' Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam Road, Hong Kong. ' Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam Road, Hong Kong. ' Department of Physics, Center for the Physics of Materials, McGill University, 3600 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 2T8, Canada

Abstract: We present a brief review of time dependent quantum transport theory for analysing nanoelectronic devices. We focus on both theoretical and numerical techniques developed recently for calculating time-dependent current flowing through noninteracting phase-coherent conductors connected to external leads, in response to external time dependent bias voltages. For sharp step- and square-shaped voltage pulses, we report an exact analytical theory based on the Keldysh nonequilibrium Green|s functions (NEGF), for solving the transport equations in the far from equilibrium, nonlinear response regime. We also report a numerical approach based on NEGF and the time-domain decomposition scheme. The essential feature of our theory is that it does not rely on the commonly used wideband approximation, as such they provide a way to perform practical transient transport calculations from first principles on realistic devices.

Keywords: transient quantum transport; nanoelectronics; nonequilibrium Green|s functions; nonequilibrium transient transport; nanostructures; nanotechnology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNT.2008.019833

International Journal of Nanotechnology, 2008 Vol.5 No.9/10/11/12, pp.1094 - 1120

Published online: 09 Aug 2008 *

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