Electronic spin precession and interferometry from spin-orbital entanglement in a double quantum dot

A double quantum dot inserted in parallel between two metallic leads allows to entangle the electron spin with the orbital (dot index) degree of freedom. An Aharonov-Bohm orbital phase can then be transferred to the spinor wavefunction, providing a geometrical control of the spin precession around a fixed magnetic field. A fully coherent behaviour is obtained in a mixed orbital/spin Kondo regime. Evidence for the spin precession can be obtained, either using spin-polarized metallic leads or by placing the double dot in one branch of a metallic loop.Comment: Final versio

Tunneling Spectroscopy of Two-level Systems Inside Josephson Junction

We consider a two-level (TL) system with energy level separation Omega_0 inside a Josephson junction. The junction is shunted by a resistor R and is current I (or voltage V = RI) biased. If the TL system modulates the Josephson energy and/or is optically active, it is Rabi driven by the Josephson oscillations in the running phase regime near the resonance 2eV = Omega_0. The Rabi oscillations, in turn, translate into oscillations of current and voltage which can be detected in noise measurements. This effect provides an option to fully characterize the TL systems and to find the TL's contribution to the decoherence when the junction is used as a qubit.Comment: 4 page

Quantum Tunneling Detection of Two-photon and Two-electron Processes

We analyze the operation of a quantum tunneling detector coupled to a coherent conductor. We demonstrate that in a certain energy range the output of the detector is determined by two-photon processes, two-electron processes and the interference of the two. We show how the individual contributions of these processes can be resolved in experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Tunneling into Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes: Coulomb Blockade and Fano Resonance

Tunneling spectroscopy measurements of single tunnel junctions formed between multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and a normal metal are reported. Intrinsic Coulomb interactions in the MWNTs give rise to a strong zero-bias suppression of a tunneling density of states (TDOS) that can be fitted numerically to the environmental quantum-fluctuation (EQF) theory. An asymmetric conductance anomaly near zero bias is found at low temperatures and interpreted as Fano resonance in the strong tunneling regime.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

A one-channel conductor in an ohmic environment: mapping to a TLL and full counting statistics

It is shown that a one-channel mesoscopic conductor in an ohmic environment can be mapped to the problem of a backscattering impurity in a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL). This allows to determine non perturbatively the effect of the environment on $I-V$ curves, and to find an exact relationship between dynamic Coulomb blockade and shot noise. We investigate critically how this relationship compares to recent proposals in the literature. The full counting statistics is determined at zero temperature.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, shortened version for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Loss of quantum coherence due to non-stationary glass fluctuations

Low-temperature dynamics of insulating glasses is dominated by a macroscopic concentration of tunneling two-level systems (TTLS). The distribution of the switching/relaxation rates of TTLS is exponentially broad, which results in non-equilibrium state of the glass at arbitrarily long time-scales. Due to the electric dipolar nature, the switching TTLS generate fluctuating electromagnetic fields. We study the effect of the non-thermal slow fluctuators on the dephasing of a solid state qubit. We find that at low enough temperatures, non-stationary contribution can dominate the stationary (thermal) one, and discuss how this effect can be minimized.Comment: 4 page

Inverse proximity effect in superconductors near ferromagnetic material

We study the electronic density of states in a mesoscopic superconductor near a transparent interface with a ferromagnetic metal. In our tunnel spectroscopy experiment, a substantial density of states is observed at sub-gap energies close to a ferromagnet. We compare our data with detailed calculations based on the Usadel equation, where the effect of the ferromagnet is treated as an effective boundary condition. We achieve an excellent agreement with theory when non-ideal quality of the interface is taken into account.Comment: revised, 7 pages, 3 figure

Resonant Tunneling in a Dissipative Environment

We measure tunneling through a single quantum level in a carbon nanotube quantum dot connected to resistive metal leads. For the electrons tunneling to/from the nanotube, the leads serve as a dissipative environment, which suppresses the tunneling rate. In the regime of sequential tunneling, the height of the single-electron conductance peaks increases as the temperature is lowered, although it scales more weekly than the conventional 1/T. In the resonant tunneling regime (temperature smaller than the level width), the peak width approaches saturation, while the peak height starts to decrease. Overall, the peak height shows a non-monotonic temperature dependence. We associate this unusual behavior with the transition from the sequential to the resonant tunneling through a single quantum level in a dissipative environment.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

The Influence of Electro-Mechanical Effects on Resonant Electron Tunneling Through Small Carbon Nano-Peapods

The influence of a fullerene molecule trapped inside a single-wall carbon nanotube on resonant electron transport at low temperatures and strong polaronic coupling is theoretically discussed. Strong peak to peak fluctuations and anomalous temperature behavior of conductance amplitudes are predicted and investigated. The influence of the chiral properties of carbon nanotubes on transport is also studied.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures. Replaced with published version. Important changes. Open access: http://stacks.iop.org/1367-2630/10/04304

Tunneling into Nonequilibrium Luttinger Liquid with Impurity

We evaluate tunneling rates into/from a voltage biased quantum wire containing weak backscattering defect. Interacting electrons in such a wire form a true nonequilibrium state of the Luttinger liquid (LL). This state is created due to inelastic electron backscattering leading to the emission of nonequilibrium plasmons with typical frequency $\hbar \omega \leq U$. The tunneling rates are split into two edges. The tunneling exponent at the Fermi edge is positive and equals that of the equilibrium LL, while the exponent at the side edge $E_F-U$ is negative if Coulomb interaction is not too strong.Comment: 4+ pages, 5 figure