Non-equilibrium transport through a disordered molecular nanowire

Abstract

We investigate the non-equilibrium transport properties of a disordered molecular nanowire. The nanowire is regarded as a quasi-one-dimensional organic crystal composed of self-assembled molecules. One orbital and a single random energy are assigned to each molecule while the intermolecular coupling does not fluctuate. Consequently, electronic states are expected to be spatially localized. We consider the regime of strong localization, namely, the localization length is smaller than the length of the molecular wire. Electron-vibron interaction, taking place in each single molecule, is also taken into account. We investigate the interplay between disorder and electron-vibron interaction in response to either an applied electric bias or a temperature gradient. To this end, we calculate the electric and heat currents when the nanowire is connected to leads, using the Keldysh non-equilibrium Green's function formalism. At intermediate temperature, scattering by disorder dominates both charge and heat transport. We find that the electron-vibron interaction enhances the effect of the disorder on the transport properties due to the exponential suppression of tunneling.