By means of the non-equilibrium Green function technique, the electronic transport through an
N-quantum-dot chain is theoretically studied. By calculating the
linear conductance spectrum and the local density of states in quantum dots, we find the resonant peaks in the spectra coincides with the eigen-energies of the
N-quantum-dot chain when the dot-lead coup
ling is relatively weak. With the increase of the dot-lead coup
ling, such a correspondence becomes inaccurate. When the dot-lead coup
ling exceeds twice the interdot coup
ling, such a mapping collapses completely. The
linear conductance turn to reflect the eigen-energies of the
(N−2)- or
(N−1)-quantum dot chain instead. The two peripheral quantum dots do not manifest themselves in the
linear conductance spectrum. More interestingly, with the further increase of the dot-lead coup
ling, the system behaves just like an
(N−2)- or
(N−1)-quantum dot chain in weak dot-lead coup
ling limit, since the resonant peaks becomes narrower with the increase of dot-lead coup
ling.