A quantum dot molecule doped with a single electron in the presence of diagonal and off-diagonal carrier-phonon couplings is studied by means of a nonperturbative quantum kinetic theory. The interaction with acoustic phonons by deformation potential and piezoelectric coupling is taken into account. We show that the phonon-mediated relaxation is fast on a picosecond time scale and is dominated by the usually neglected off-diagonal coupling to the lattice degrees of freedom leading to phonon-assisted electron tunneling. We show that in the parameter regime of current electrical and optical experiments, the microscopic non-Markovian theory has to be employed.

• Received 14 December 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.81.115305