Absence of compressible edge channel rings in quantum antidots

We report resonant tunneling experiments in a quantum antidot sample in the integer quantum Hall regime. In particular, we have measured the temperature T dependence of the peak value of a conductance peak on the i = 2 plateau, where there are two peaks per magnetic flux quantum straight phi(0). We observe a T-1 dependence as expected when tunneling through only one electron state is possible. This result is incompatible with tunneling through a compressible ring of several degenerate states. We also observe, for the first time, three conductance peaks per straight phi(0) on the i = 3 plateau.     

Tunneling through a coherent "Quantum antidot molecule"

We report experiments on resonant tunneling through a quantum antidot in the fractional quantum Hall regime. The envelope of the conductance peaks indicates tunneling via two resonant states, one of them bound on the lithographic antidot, the other on a hill of the disorder potential. Moreover, our analysis indicates that the coherent tunneling rate between the two states is an order of magnitude higher than the phase breaking rate, thus giving evidence for a coherently coupled "antidot molecule."     

Conductance oscillations and transport spectroscopy of a quantum dot

Results are reported for low temperature measurements of the conductance through small regions of a two-dimensional electron gas (2 DEG). An unconventional GaAs heterostructure is used to form a 2 DEG whose density can be tuned by the gate voltage applied to its conductive substrate. Electron beam lithography is used to pattern a narrow channel in the 2 DEG interrupted by two constrictions, defining a small 2 DEG island between them. The conductance is found to oscillate periodically with the gate voltage, namely with electron density. Calculations of the capacitance between the substrate and the island show that the period of oscillation corresponds to adding one electron to the island. The oscillatory behavior results primarily from the discreteness of charge and the Coulomb interaction between electrons. However, the observed temperature dependence of these oscillations requires a more sophisticated treatment which includes the quantized electron energy levels as well. The magnetic field dependence of the oscillations allows us to extract the discrete energy spectrum of the quantum dot in the quantum-Hall regime.     

Transport properties of quantum dots

Linear and nonlinear transport through a quantum dot that is weakly coupled to ideal quantum leads is investigated in the parameter regime where charging and geometrical quantization effects coexist. The exact eigenstates and spins of a finite number of correlated electrons confined within the dot are combined with a rate equation. The current is calculated in the regime of sequential tunneling. The analytic solution for an Anderson impurity is given. The phenomenological charging model is compared with the quantum mechanical model for interacting electrons. The current-voltage characteristics show Coulomb blockade. The excited states lead to additional fine-structure in the current voltage characteristics. Asymmetry in the coupling between the quantum dot and the leads causes asymmetry in the conductance peaks which is reversed with the bias voltage. The spin selection rules can cause a ‘spin blockade’ which decreases the current when certain excited states become involved in the transport. In two-dimensional dots, peaks in the linear conductance can be suppressed at low temperatures, when the total spins of the corresponding ground states differ by more than 1/2. In a magnetic field, an electron number parity effect due to the different spins of the many-electron ground states is predicted in addition to the vanishing of the spin blockade effect. All of the predicted features are consistent with recent experiments.     

Spin-polarized transport through a coupled double-dot

We investigate the quantum transport through a mesoscopic device consisting of an open, lateral double-quantum-dot coupled by time oscillating and spin-polarization dependent tunneling which results from a static magnetic field applied in the tunneling junction. In the presence of a non-vanishing bias voltage applied to two attached macroscopic leads both spin and charge currents are driven through the device. We demonstrate that the spin and charge currents are controllable by adjusting the gate voltage, the frequency of driving field and the magnitude of the magnetic field as well. An interesting resonance phenomenon is observed.     

Fano-type spin-flip mesoscopic transport through an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer

We have investigated the mesoscopic transport properties of a quantum dot embedded Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interferometer applied with a rotating magnetic field. The spin-flip effect is induced by the rotating magnetic field, and the tunneling current is sensitive to the spin-flip effect. The spin-flipped electrons tunneling from the direct channel and the resonant channel interfere with each other to form spin-polarized tunneling current components. The non-resonant tunneling (direct transmission) strength and the AB phase φ play important roles. When the non-resonant tunneling (background transmission) exists, the spin and charge currents form asymmetric peaks and valleys, which exhibit Fano-type line shapes by varying the source-drain bias voltage, or gate voltage. The AB oscillations of the spin and charge currents exhibit distinct dependence on the magnetic flux and direct tunneling strength.     

Electron bunching in transport through quantum dots in a high magnetic field

Shot noise measurements provide information on particle charge and its correlations. We report on shot noise measurements in a generic quantum dot under a quantized magnetic field. The measured noise at the peaks of a sequence of conductance resonances was some 9 times higher than expected, suggesting bunching of electrons as they traverse through the dot. This enhancement might be mediated by an additional level, weakly coupled to the leads or an excited state. Note that in the absence of a magnetic filed no bunching had been observed.     

Electron transport in double-walled carbon nanotubes

The transport properties of finite length double-walled carbon nanotubes subject to the influences of a transverse electric field and a magnetic field with varying polar angles are investigated theoretically. The electrical conductance, thermal conductance and Peltier coefficient dependences on the external fields and symmetric configuration are studied in linear response regime. Prominent peak structures of the electrical conductance are predicted when varying the electric field strength. The features of the conductance peaks are found to be strongly dependent on the external fields and the intertube interactions. The heights of the electrical and thermal conductance peaks display the quantized behavior, while those of the Peltier coefficient do not. The conductance peaks are found to be broadened by the finite temperature.     

Inelastic tunneling of electrons through a quantum dot with an embedded single molecular magnet

We report a theoretical analysis of electron transport through a quantum dot with an embedded biaxial single-molecule magnet (SMM) based on mapping of the many-body interaction-system onto a one-body problem by means of the non-equilibrium Green function technique. It is found that the conducting current exhibits a stepwise behavior and the nonlinear differential conductance displays additional peaks with variation of the sweeping speed and the magnitude of magnetic field. This observation can be interpreted by the interaction of electron-spin with the SMM and the quantum tunneling of magnetization. The inelastic conductance and the corresponding tunneling processes are investigated with normal as well as ferromagnetic electrodes. In the case of ferromagnetic configuration, the coupling to the SMM leads to an asymmetric tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR), which can be enhanced or suppressed greatly in certain regions. Moreover, a sudden TMR-switch with the variation of magnetic field is observed, which is seen to be caused by the inelastic tunneling.     

Enhancement of charge and spin Seebeck effect in triple quantum dots coupling to ferromagnetic and superconducting electrodes

We theoretically study the thermoelectric transport properties through a triple quantum dots (QDs) device with the central QD coupled to a ferromagnetic lead, a superconducting one, and two side QDs with spin-dependent interdot tunneling coupling. The thermoelectric coefficients are calculated in the linear response regime by means of nonequilibrium Green's function method. The thermopower is determined by the single-electron tunneling processes at the edge of superconducting gap. Near the outside of the gap edge the thermopower is enhanced while thermal conductance is suppressed, as a result, the charge figure of merit can be greatly improved as the gap appropriately increases. In the same way, charge figure of merit also can be greatly improved near the outside of the gap edge by adjusting interdot tunneling coupling and asymmetry coupling of the side QDs to central QD. Moreover, the appropriate increase of the interdot tunneling splitting and spin polarization of ferromagnetic lead not only can improve charge thermopower and charge figure of merit, but also can enhance spin thermopower and spin figure of merit. Especially, the interdot tunneling splitting scheme provides a method of controlling charge (spin) figure merit by external magnetic field.     

Electrically tunable macroscopic quantum tunneling in a graphene-based Josephson junction

Stochastic switching-current distribution in a graphene-based Josephson junction exhibits a crossover from the classical to quantum regime, revealing the macroscopic quantum tunneling of a Josephson phase particle at low temperatures. Microwave spectroscopy measurements indicate a multiphoton absorption process occurring via discrete energy levels in washboard potential well. The crossover temperature for macroscopic quantum tunneling and the quantized level spacing are controlled with the gate voltage, implying its potential application to gate-tunable superconducting quantum bits.     

Number-Phase Quantization Scheme and the Quantum Effects of a Mesoscopic Electric Circuit at Finite Temperature

For L-C circuit, a new quantized scheme has been proposed in the context of number-phase quantization. In this quantization scheme, the number n of the electric charge q(q=en) is quantized as the charge number operator and the phase difference θ across the capacity is quantized as phase operator. Based on the scheme of number-phase quantization and the thermo field dynamics (TFD), the quantum fluctuations of the charge number and phase difference of a mesoscopic L-C circuit in the thermal vacuum state, the thermal coherent state and the thermal squeezed state have been studied. It is shown that these quantum fluctuations of the charge number and phase difference are related to not only the parameters of circuit, the squeezing parameter, but also the temperature in these quantum states. It is proven that the number-phase quantization scheme is very useful to tackle with quantization of some mesoscopic electric circuits and the quantum effects.     

Widths of the Hall Conductance Plateaus

We study the charge transport of the noninteracting electron gas in a two-dimensional quantum Hall system with Anderson-type impurities at zero temperature. We prove that there exist localized states of the bulk order in the disordered-broadened Landau bands whose energies are smaller than a certain value determined by the strength of the uniform magnetic field. We also prove that, when the Fermi level lies in the localization regime, the Hall conductance is quantized to the desired integer and shows the plateau of the bulk order for varying the filling factor of the electrons rather than the Fermi level.     

Nonequilibrium spin transport through a diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum dot system with noncollinear magnetization

The spin-dependent transport through a diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum dot (QD) which is coupled via magnetic tunnel junctions to two ferromagnetic leads is studied theoretically. A noncollinear system is considered, where the QD is magnetized at an arbitrary angle with respect to the leads’ magnetization. The tunneling current is calculated in the coherent regime via the Keldysh nonequilibrium Green’s function (NEGF) formalism, incorporating the electron–electron interaction in the QD. We provide the first analytical solution for the Green’s function of the noncollinear DMS quantum dot system, solved via the equation of motion method under Hartree–Fock approximation. The transport characteristics (charge and spin currents, and tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR)) are evaluated for different voltage regimes. The interplay between spin-dependent tunneling and single-charge effects results in three distinct voltage regimes in the spin and charge current characteristics. The voltage range in which the QD is singly occupied corresponds to the maximum spin current and greatest sensitivity of the spin current to the QD magnetization orientation. The QD device also shows transport features suitable for sensor applications, i.e., a large charge current coupled with a high TMR ratio.     

Effect of inter-miniband tunneling on current resonances due to the formation of stochastic conduction networks in superlattices

We study the effects of inter-miniband electron tunneling and electric field domains on the current–voltage and conductance–voltage curves of biased semiconductor superlattices under the action of a magnetic field that is tilted relative to the plane of the layers. For this geometry, electrons in the superlattice minibands exhibit a unique type of stochastic semiclassical motion. At certain critical values of the electric field within the superlattice layers, the stochastic trajectories change abruptly from fully localized to completely unbounded, and map out an intricate web-like mesh of conduction channels in phase space. Delocalization of the electron paths produces a series of strong resonant peaks in the electron drift velocity versus electric field curves. We use these drift velocity characteristics to make self-consistent drift-diffusion calculations of the current–voltage and differential conductance–voltage curves of the superlattices, which reveal strong resonant features originating from the sudden delocalization of the stochastic single-electron paths. We show that this delocalization has a pronounced effect on the distribution of space charge and electric field domains within the superlattices. Inter-miniband tunneling greatly reduces the amount of space-charge buildup, thus enhancing the domain structure and both the strength and number of the current resonances.     

Quantum spin Hall effect

The quantum Hall liquid is a novel state of matter with profound emergent properties such as fractional charge and statistics. The existence of the quantum Hall effect requires breaking of the time reversal symmetry caused by an external magnetic field. In this work, we predict a quantized spin Hall effect in the absence of any magnetic field, where the intrinsic spin Hall conductance is quantized in units of 2(e/4pi). The degenerate quantum Landau levels are created by the spin-orbit coupling in conventional semiconductors in the presence of a strain gradient. This new state of matter has many profound correlated properties described by a topological field theory.     

Evidence for Coulomb staircase in tunneling through an antidot island in the quantum Hall regime

We studied the – characteristics of tunneling devices, defined by two trench fingers and an antidot island patterned on Corbino rings in the quantum Hall plateau regime. Well-developed current steps were observed at filling factors near , which we interpret as a Coulomb staircase phenomenon due to charging of compressible strips around the antidot. The evolution of the current steps with filling factor is explained in the quasi-elastic inter landau level scattering model.     

Self-assembled nanocrystalline CdSe thin films

The topic of this contribution is the investigation of quantum states and quantum Hall effect in electron gas subjected to a periodic potential of the lateral lattice. The potential is formed by triangular quantum antidots located on the sites of the square lattice. In such a system the inversion center and the four-fold rotation symmetry are absent. The topological invariants which characterize different magnetic subbands and their Hall conductances are calculated. It is shown that the details of the antidot geometry are crucial for the Hall conductance quantization rule. The critical values of lattice parameters defining the shape of triangular antidots at which the Hall conductance is changed drastically are determined. We demonstrate that the quantum states and Hall conductance quantization law for the triangular antidot lattice differ from the case of the square lattice with cylindrical antidots. As an example, the Hall conductances of magnetic subbands for different antidot geometries are calculated for the case when the number of magnetic flux quanta per unit cell is equal to three.     

Conductance studies in a double-bend quantum structure

Transport phenomena in a double-bend quantum structure fabricated in the two-dimensional electron gas of a modulation doped GaAs/AlGaAs structure, are studied experimentally. The structure consists of an electrostatically defined quantum dot with two one-dimensional wires connected on opposite corners of the dot. The current–voltage characteristics of such devices exhibit quantized conductance breakdown (non-linear behavior), conductance variation with confinement, and non-linear and asymmetric behavior at high bias condition. Low temperature conductance of this structure shows evidence of resonant tunneling, while the peaks of the conductance vary with temperature.     

Time-dependent transport through a quantum dot with the over-dot (bridge) additional tunneling channel

The time-dependent electron transport through a quantum dot with the additional over-dot (bridge) tunneling channel within the evolution operator technique has been studied. The microwave field applied to the leads and quantum dot has been considered and influence of the time-dependent shift of corresponding energy levels on the quantum dot charge and current flowing in the system, its time-averaged values and derivatives of the average current with respect to the gate and source–drain bias voltages have been investigated. The influence of the over-dot tunneling channel on the photon-assisted tunneling has been also studied.