Coherent Transport in Periodically Driven Mesoscopic Conductors: From Scattering Amplitudes to Quantum Thermodynamics

Abstract

Abstract Scattering theory is a standard tool for the description of transport phenomena in mesoscopic systems. Here, we provide a detailed derivation of this method for nano-scale conductors that are driven by oscillating electric or magnetic fields. Our approach is based on an extension of the conventional Lippmann–Schwinger formalism to systems with a periodically time-dependent Hamiltonian. As a key result, we obtain a systematic perturbation scheme for the Floquet scattering amplitudes that describes the transition of a transport carrier through a periodically driven sample. Within a general multi-terminal setup, we derive microscopic expressions for the mean values and time-integrated correlation functions, or zero-frequency noise, of matter and energy currents, thus recovering the results of earlier studies in a unifying framework. We show that this framework is inherently consistent with the first and the second law of thermodynamics and prove that the mean rate of entropy production vanishes only if all currents in the system are zero. As an application, we derive a generalized Green–Kubo relation, which makes it possible to express the response of any mean currents to small variations of temperature and chemical potential gradients in terms of time integrated correlation functions between properly chosen currents. Finally, we discuss potential topics for future studies and further reaching applications of the Floquet scattering approach to quantum transport in stochastic and quantum thermodynamics.