For quantum transport through mesoscopic system, a quantum master equationapproach is developed in terms of compact expressions for the transport currentand the reduced density matrix of the system. The present work is an extensionof Gurvitz's approach for quantum transport and quantum measurement, namely, tofinite temperature and arbitrary bias voltage. Our derivation starts from asecond-order cummulant expansion of the tunneling Hamiltonian, then followsconditional average over the electrode reservoir states. As a consequence, inthe usual weak tunneling regime, the established formalism is applicable for awide range of transport problems. The validity of the formalism and itsconvenience in application are well illustrated by a number of examples.
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