Title

Replacing leads by self-energies using non-equilibrium Green's functions

Authors

Authors

F. Michael;M. D. Johnson

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Physica B

Keywords

non-equilibrium Green's functions; keldysh; mesoscopic transport; TRANSFER-HAMILTONIAN FORMALISM; TUNNELLING CURRENT; TUNNELING CURRENT; JUNCTION; Physics, Condensed Matter

Abstract

Open quantum systems consist of semi-infinite leads which transport electrons to and from the device of interest. We show here that within the non-equilibrium Green's function technique for continuum systems, the leads can be replaced by simple c-number self-energies. Our starting point is an approach for continuum systems developed by Feuchtwang. The reformulation developed here is simpler to understand and carry out than the somewhat unwieldly manipulations typical in the Feuchtwang method. The self-energies turn out to have a limited variability: the retarded self-energy Sigma(r) depends on the arbitrary choice of internal boundary conditions, but the non-equilibrium self-energy or scattering function Sigma( < ) which determines transport is invariant for a broad class of boundary conditions. Expressed in terms of these self-energies. continuum non-equilibrium transport calculations take a particularly simple form similar to that developed for discrete systems. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Journal Title

Physica B-Condensed Matter

Volume

339

Issue/Number

1

Publication Date

1-1-2003

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

31

Last Page

38

WOS Identifier

WOS:000186812300005

ISSN

0921-4526

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