Cavity-enhanced transport of charge

Abstract: We theoretically investigate charge transport through electronic bands of a mesoscopic one-dimensional system, where inter-band transitions are coupled to a confined cavity mode, initially prepared close to its vacuum. This coupling leads to light-matter hybridization where the dressed fermionic bands interact via absorption and emission of dressed cavity-photons. Using a self-consistent non-equilibrium Green's function method, we compute electronic transmissions and cavity photon spectra and demonstrate how light-matter coupling can lead to an enhancement of charge conductivity in the steady-state. We find that depending on cavity loss rate, electronic bandwidth, and coupling strength, the dynamics involves either an individual or a collective response of Bloch states, and explain how this affects the current enhancement. We show that the charge conductivity enhancement can reach orders of magnitudes under experimentally relevant conditions.