Kondo screening of a high-spin Nagaoka state in a triangular quantum dot

We study transport through a triangle triple quantum dot connected to two noninteracting leads using the numerical renormalization group (NRG). The triangle has a high-spin ground state of S = 1 caused by a Nagaoka ferromagnetism, when it is isolated and has one extra electron introduced into a half-filling. The results show that the conduction electrons screen the local moment via two separate stages with different energy scales. The half of the S = 1 is screened first by one of the channel degrees, and then at very low temperature the remaining half is fully screened to form a Kondo singlet. The transport is determined by two phase shifts for quasi-particles with even and odd parities, and then a two-terminal conductance in the series configuration is suppressed g(series) similar or equal to 0, while plateau of a fourterminal parallel conductance reaches a unitary limit value g(parallel) similar or equal to 4e(2)/h of two conducting modes. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.