Quantum ballistic transport in in-plane-gate transistors showing onset of a novel ferromagnetic phase transition

We study one-dimensional transport in focused-ion-beam written in-plane-gate transistors on III-V heterostructures at moderately low temperatures at zero bias without any external magnetic field applied. In accordance with a recent proposal of A. Gold and L. Calmels, Valley- and spin-occupancy instability in the quasi-one-dimensional electron gas, Phil. Mag. Lett. 74, 33-42 (1996) and earlier experimental data, we observe plateaux in the source-drain conductivity considered as a function of the gate voltage, not only at multliples of 2e^2/h but also clearly at e^2/h, just before the channel closes to zero conductivity. This may be interpreted as a many electron effect, namely as a novel ballistic ferromagnetic ground state evading standard descriptions and theorems.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, 22 reference

Single-hole transistor in p-type GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures

A single-hole transistor is patterned in a p-type, C-doped GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure by AFM oxidation lithography. Clear Coulomb blockade resonances have been observed at T=300 mK. A charging energy of ~ 1.5 meV is extracted from Coulomb diamond measurements, in agreement with the lithographic dimensions of the dot. The absence of excited states in Coulomb diamond measurements, as well as the temperature dependence of Coulomb peak heights indicate that the dot is in the multi-level transport regime. Fluctuations in peak spacings larger than the estimated mean single-particle level spacing are observed.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Asymmetry of charge relaxation times in quantum dots: The influence of degeneracy

Using time-resolved transconductance spectroscopy, we study the tunneling dynamics between a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) and self-assembled quantum dots (QDs), embedded in a field-effect transistor structure. We find that the tunneling of electrons from the 2DEG into the QDs is governed by a different time constant than the reverse process, i.e., tunneling from the QDs to the 2DEG. This asymmetry is a clear signature of Coulomb interaction and makes it possible to determine the degeneracy of the quantum dot orbitals even when the individual states cannot be resolved energetically because of inhomogeneous broadening. Our experimental data can be qualitatively explained within a master-equation approach

Magneto-capacitance probing of the many-particle states in InAs dots

We use frequency-dependent capacitance-voltage spectroscopy to measure the tunneling probability into self-assembled InAs quantum dots. Using an in-plane magnetic field of variable strength and orientation, we are able to obtain information on the quasi-particle wave functions in momentum space for 1 to 6 electrons per dot. For the lowest two energy states, we find a good agreement with Gaussian functions for a harmonic potential. The high energy orbitals exhibit signatures of anisotropic confinement and correlation effects.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure

Ergodic vs diffusive decoherence in mesoscopic devices

We report on the measurement of phase coherence length in a high mobility two-dimensional electron gas patterned in two different geometries, a wire and a ring. The phase coherence length is extracted both from the weak localization correction in long wires and from the amplitude of the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in a single ring, in a low temperature regime when decoherence is dominated by electronic interactions. We show that these two measurements lead to different phase coherence lengths, namely $L_{\Phi}^\mathrm{wire}\propto T^{-1/3}$ and $L_{\Phi}^\mathrm{ring}\propto T^{-1/2}$. This difference reflects the fact that the electrons winding around the ring necessarily explore the whole sample (ergodic trajectories), while in a long wire the electrons lose their phase coherence before reaching the edges of the sample (diffusive regime).Comment: LaTeX, 5 pages, 4 pdf figures ; v2: revised versio

A few-electron quadruple quantum dot in a closed loop

We report the realization of a quadruple quantum dot device in a square-like configuration where a single electron can be transferred on a closed path free of other electrons. By studying the stability diagrams of this system, we demonstrate that we are able to reach the few-electron regime and to control the electronic population of each quantum dot with gate voltages. This allows us to control the transfer of a single electron on a closed path inside the quadruple dot system. This work opens the route towards electron spin manipulation using spin-orbit interaction by moving an electron on complex paths free of electron

Transform-limited single photons from a single quantum dot

A semiconductor quantum dot mimics a two-level atom. Performance as a single photon source is limited by decoherence and dephasing of the optical transition. Even with high quality material at low temperature, the optical linewidths are a factor of two larger than the transform-limit. A major contributor to the inhomogeneous linewdith is the nuclear spin noise. We show here that the nuclear spin noise depends on optical excitation, increasing (decreasing) with increasing resonant laser power for the neutral (charged) exciton. Based on this observation, we discover regimes where we demonstrate transform-limited linewidths on both neutral and charged excitons even when the measurement is performed very slowly

Epitaxial lift-off for solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics

We present a new approach to incorporate self-assembled quantum dots into a Fabry-P\'{e}rot-like microcavity. Thereby a 3$\lambda$/4 GaAs layer containing quantum dots is epitaxially removed and attached by van der Waals bonding to one of the microcavity mirrors. We reach a finesse as high as 4,100 with this configuration limited by the reflectivity of the dielectric mirrors and not by scattering at the semiconductor - mirror interface, demonstrating that the epitaxial lift-off procedure is a promising procedure for cavity quantum electrodynamics in the solid state. As a first step in this direction, we demonstrate a clear cavity-quantum dot interaction in the weak coupling regime with a Purcell factor in the order of 3. Estimations of the coupling strength via the Purcell factor suggests that we are close to the strong coupling regime.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure