Bias driven circular current in a ring nanojunction: Critical role of environmental interaction

Abstract

The specific role of environmental interaction on bias driven circular current in a ring nanojunction is explored within a tight-binding framework based on wave-guide theory. The environmental interaction is implemented through disorder in backbone sites where these sites are directly coupled to parent lattice sites of the ring via single bonds. In the absence of backbone disorder, circular current becomes zero for a lengthwise symmetric nanojunction, while it increases with disorder, which is quite unusual, and after reaching a maximum, it eventually drops to zero in the limit of high disorder. The effects of ring-electrode interface configuration, ring-backbone coupling, different types of backbone disorder, and system temperature are critically investigated. All the studied results are valid for a broad range of physical parameters, giving us confidence that the outcomes of this theoretical work can be verified experimentally. To make this study self-contained, we also discuss the feasibility of detecting bias-driven circular current and provide design guidelines for implementing our proposed quantum system in a laboratory.