328 research outputs found
Measurement of the Transmission Phase of an Electron in a Quantum Two-Path Interferometer
A quantum two-path interferometer allows for direct measurement of the
transmission phase shift of an electron, providing useful information on
coherent scattering problems. In mesoscopic systems, however, the two-path
interference is easily smeared by contributions from other paths, and this
makes it difficult to observe the \textit{true} transmission phase shift. To
eliminate this problem, multi-terminal Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interferometers have
been used to derive the phase shift by assuming that the relative phase shift
of the electrons between the two paths is simply obtained when a smooth shift
of the AB oscillations is observed. Nevertheless the phase shifts using such a
criterion have sometimes been inconsistent with theory. On the other hand, we
have used an AB ring contacted to tunnel-coupled wires and acquired the phase
shift consistent with theory when the two output currents through the coupled
wires oscillate with well-defined anti-phase. Here, we investigate thoroughly
these two criteria used to ensure a reliable phase measurement, the anti-phase
relation of the two output currents and the smooth phase shift in the AB
oscillation. We confirm that the well-defined anti-phase relation ensures a
correct phase measurement with a quantum two-path interference. In contrast we
find that even in a situation where the anti-phase relation is less
well-defined, the smooth phase shift in the AB oscillation can still occur but
does not give the correct transmission phase due to contributions from multiple
paths. This indicates that the phase relation of the two output currents in our
interferometer gives a good criterion for the measurement of the \textit{true}
transmission phase while the smooth phase shift in the AB oscillation itself
does not.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Optical Visualization of Radiative Recombination at Partial Dislocations in GaAs
Individual dislocations in an ultra-pure GaAs epilayer are investigated with
spatially and spectrally resolved photoluminescence imaging at 5~K. We find
that some dislocations act as strong non-radiative recombination centers, while
others are efficient radiative recombination centers. We characterize
luminescence bands in GaAs due to dislocations, stacking faults, and pairs of
stacking faults. These results indicate that low-temperature,
spatially-resolved photoluminescence imaging can be a powerful tool for
identifying luminescence bands of extended defects. This mapping could then be
used to identify extended defects in other GaAs samples solely based on
low-temperature photoluminescence spectra.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Polarization-preserving confocal microscope for optical experiments in a dilution refrigerator with high magnetic field
We present the design and operation of a fiber-based cryogenic confocal
microscope. It is designed as a compact cold-finger that fits inside the bore
of a superconducting magnet, and which is a modular unit that can be easily
swapped between use in a dilution refrigerator and other cryostats. We aimed at
application in quantum optical experiments with electron spins in
semiconductors and the design has been optimized for driving with, and
detection of optical fields with well-defined polarizations. This was
implemented with optical access via a polarization maintaining fiber together
with Voigt geometry at the cold finger, which circumvents Faraday rotations in
the optical components in high magnetic fields. Our unit is versatile for use
in experiments that measure photoluminescence, reflection, or transmission, as
we demonstrate with a quantum optical experiment with an ensemble of
donor-bound electrons in a thin GaAs film.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
Split-gate quantum point contacts with tunable channel length
We report on developing split-gate quantum point contacts (QPCs) that have a
tunable length for the transport channel. The QPCs were realized in a
GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure with a two- dimensional electron gas (2DEG) below
its surface. The conventional design uses 2 gate fingers on the wafer surface
which deplete the 2DEG underneath when a negative gate voltage is applied, and
this allows for tuning the width of the QPC channel. Our design has 6 gate
fingers and this provides additional control over the form of the electrostatic
potential that defines the channel. Our study is based on electrostatic
simulations and experiments and the results show that we developed QPCs where
the effective channel length can be tuned from about 200 nm to 600 nm.
Length-tunable QPCs are important for studies of electron many-body effects
because these phenomena show a nanoscale dependence on the dimensions of the
QPC channel
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