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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Nanoelectromechanical rotary current rectifier

Christopher W. Wächtler1,*, Alan Celestino1, Alexander Croy2, and Alexander Eisfeld1

  • 1Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Strasse 38, 01187 Dresden, Germany
  • 2Institute for Materials Science and Max Bergmann Center of Biomaterials, TU Dresden, 01069 Dresden, Germany

  • *cwaechtler@pks.mpg.de
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Phys. Rev. Research 3, L032020 – Published 27 July, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L032020

Abstract

Nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) are devices integrating electrical and mechanical functionality on the nanoscale. Because of individual electron tunneling, such systems can show rich self-induced, highly nonlinear dynamics. We show theoretically that rotor shuttles, fundamental NEMS without intrinsic frequencies, are able to rectify an oscillatory bias voltage over a wide range of external parameters in a highly controlled manner, even if subject to the stochastic nature of electron tunneling and thermal noise. Supplemented by a simple analytic model, we identify different operational modes of charge rectification. Intriguingly, the direction of the current depends sensitively on the external parameters.

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Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 3, L032020– Published 27 July, 2021
  • Received 21 March 2021
  • Revised 7 June 2021
  • Accepted 12 July 2021
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.

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