Theoretical investigations for shot noise in correlated resonant tunneling through a quantum coupled system

We carry out a theoretical analysis of the zero-frequency and finite-frequency shot noise in electron tunneling through a two-level interacting system connected to two leads, when a weak coherent coupling between the two levels is present, by means of recently developed bias-voltage and temperature-dependent quantum rate equations. For this purpose, we generalize the traditional generation-recombination approach for shot noise of two-terminal tunneling devices to properly take into account the coherent superposition of different electronic states (quantum effects). As applications, analytical and numerical investigations have been given in detail for two particular cases: (1) electron tunneling through a quantum dot connected to ferromagnetic leads with intradot spin-flip scattering and (2) spinless fermions tunneling through two coupled quantum dots, focusing on the shot noise as functions of bias-voltage and frequency. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.