Strongly enhanced shot noise in chains of quantum dots

The authors study charge transport through a chain of quantum dots. The dots are fully coherent among each other and weakly coupled to metallic electrodes. If the Coulomb interaction dominates over the interdot hopping the authors find strongly enhanced shot noise at biases above the sequential tunneling threshold, with an enhancement which can easily reach a factor of similar to 100. This strong enhancement may allow direct experimental detection of shot noise, e.g., in a chain of quantum dots formed in semiconductor heterostructures. The current is not enhanced in the region of enhanced noise, thus rendering the shot noise super-Poissonian. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.