Effects of inelastic processes on the transmission in a coupled-quantum-wire system

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Abstract
We study the effects of inelastic-scattering processes on the transmission properties of a coupled-quantum-wire system which acts as an electron-waveguide coupler. A Breit-Wigner scattering formula is derived by considering the junction resonance and the symmetry of the system. We also performed a direct numerical solution of the Schrödinger equation with a complex potential mimicking the inelastic process. The inelastic scattering smears out the resonance transmission pattern. For a waveguide coupler with transfer length smaller than several thousand angstroms, the electron transfer phenomenon is not affected significantly by inelastic-scattering processes up to temperatures about 77 K, but the inelastic channel becomes much more important with the increase of transfer length.