Eur. Phys. J. B (2012) 85: 70
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2012-20923-7

Regular Article

Cotunneling mechanism of single-electron shuttling

Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel-Aviv University, 69978 Tel-Aviv, Israel

^a Present address: Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, 92093-0319 CA, USA.
^b e-mail: fleurov@post.tau.ac.il

Received: 13 November 2011
Received in final form: 9 January 2012
Published online: 15 February 2012

Abstract

The problem of electron transport by means of a dumbbell shaped shuttle in strong Coulomb blockade regime is solved. The electrons may be shuttled only in the cotunneling regime during the time spans when both shoulders of the shuttle approach the metallic banks. The conventional Anderson-like tunneling model is generalized for this case and the tunneling conductance is calculated in the adiabatic regime of slow motion of the shuttle. Non-adiabatic corrections are briefly discussed