Non-equilibrium charge and heat transport in driven molecular junctions and molecular photocells

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Frithjof B. Anders
• Subject Area: Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 498305646

This proposal has three major objectives: (i) apply our novel open system approach to a two-lead setup with independent chemical potentials and temperatures in each lead to investigate the charge and heat transport through strongly correlated nano-junctions, (ii) extending the approach to molecular photocells (iii) and use this open quantum system approach to determine life-time effects in local spectral functions by the coupling functions to reservoirs which have been derived from the original continuum model. Our approach combines Wilson's renormalization group with a Bloch-Redfield master equation which encodes the boundary conditions such as the temperature gradient and the applied bias voltage. This allows to calculate current-voltage characteristics as well as Seebeck and Pelier coefficient. Latter are usually defined in the linear response regime. Here we are able to extent the heat current to the far non-equilibrium regime. Furthermore, the Bloch-Redfield approach allows for an easy description of photon absorption processes in a Markov approximation be adding another source term to the master equation. We will target the current generation on molecular photocells.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants