Photovoltaic and Rectification Currents in Quantum Dots

We investigate theoretically and experimentally the statistical properties of dc current through an open quantum dot subject to ac excitation of a shape-defining gate. The symmetries of rectification current and photovoltaic current with respect to applied magnetic field are examined. Theory and experiment are found to be in good agreement throughout a broad range of frequency and ac power, ranging from adiabatic to nonadiabatic regimes.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; related articles at http://marcuslab.harvard.ed

L\'{e}vy flights in quantum transport in quasi-ballistic wires

Conductance fluctuations, localization and statistics of Lyapunov exponents are studied numerically in pure metallic wires with rough boundaries (quasi-ballistic wires). We find that the correlation energy of conductance fluctuations scales anomalously with the sample dimensions, indicating the role of L\'{e}vy flights. Application of a magnetic field deflects the L\'{e}vy flights which reduces the localization length. This deflection also breaks the geometrical flux cancellation and restores the usual Aharonov-Bohm type magneto-conductance fluctuations.Comment: Available also at http://roberto.fis.uniroma3.it/leadbeat/pub.htm

Interplay between spin-relaxation and Andreev reflection in ferromagnetic wires with superconducting contacts

We analyze the change in the resistance of a junction between a diffusive ferromagnetic (F) wire and normal metal electrode, due to the onset of superconductivity (S) in the latter and a double Andreev scattering process leading to a complete internal reflection of a large fraction of the spin-polarized electrons back into the ferromagnet. The superconducting transition results in an additional contact resistance arising from the necessity to match spin-polarized current in F-wire to spin-less current in S-reservoir, which is comparable to the resistance of a piece of a F-wire with the length equal to the spin-relaxation length.Comment: 4 pages, 2 fig

Directed electron transport through ballistic quantum dot under microwave radiation

Rectification of microwave radiation by asymmetric, ballistic quantum dot is observed. The directed transport is studied at different frequency (1-40 GHz) temperatures (0.3K-6K)and magnetic field. Dramatic reduction of the rectification is found in magnetic fields at which the cyclotron (Larmor) radius of the electron orbits at Fermi level is smaller than the size of the quantum dot. It strongly suggests the ballistic nature of the observed nonlinear phenomena. Both symmetric and anti-symmetric with respect to the magnetic field contributions to the directed transport are presented. We have found that the behavior of the symmetric part of the rectified voltage with the magnetic field is different significantly for microwaves with different frequencies. A ballistic model of the directed transport is proposed.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Light scattering by a medium with a spatially modulated optical conductivity: the case of graphene

We describe light scattering from a graphene sheet having a modulated optical conductivity. We show that such modulation enables the excitation of surface plasmon-polaritons by an electromagnetic wave impinging at normal incidence. The resulting surface plasmon-polaritons are responsible for a substantial increase of electromagnetic radiation absorption by the graphene sheet. The origin of the modulation can be due either to a periodic strain field or to adatoms (or absorbed molecules) with a modulated adsorption profile.Comment: http://iopscience.iop.org/0953-8984/24/24/24530

Multiphoton Processes in Driven Mesoscopic Systems

We study the statistics of multi-photon absorption/emission processes in a mesoscopic ring threaded by an harmonic time-dependent flux $\Phi(t)$. For this sake, we demonstrate a useful analogy between the Keldysh quantum kinetic equation for the electrons distribution function and a Continuous Time Random Walk in energy space with corrections due to interference effects. Studying the probability to absorb/emit $n$ quanta $\hbar\omega$ per scattering event, we explore the crossover between ultra-quantum/low-intensity limit and quasi-classical/high-intensity regime, and the role of multiphoton processes in driving it.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, extended versio

Photovoltaic Current Response of Mesoscopic Conductors to Quantized Cavity Modes

We extend the analysis of the effects of electromagnetic (EM) fields on mesoscopic conductors to include the effects of field quantization, motivated by recent experiments on circuit QED. We show that in general there is a photovoltaic (PV) current induced by quantized cavity modes at zero bias across the conductor. This current depends on the average photon occupation number and vanishes identically when it is equal to the average number of thermal electron-hole pairs. We analyze in detail the case of a chaotic quantum dot at temperature T_e in contact with a thermal EM field at temperature T_f, calculating the RMS size of the PV current as a function of the temperature difference, finding an effect ~pA.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Statistics of delay times in mesoscopic systems as a manifestation of eigenfunction fluctuations

We reveal a general explicit relation between the statistics of delay times in one-channel reflection from a mesoscopic sample of any spatial dimension and the statistics of the eigenfunction intensities in its closed counterpart. This opens a possibility to use experimentally measurable delay times as a sensitive probe of eigenfunction fluctuations. For the particular case of quasi-one dimensional geometry of the sample we use an alternative technique to derive the probability density of partial delay times for any number of open channels.Comment: 12 pages; published version with updated reference

Statistics of Rare Events in Disordered Conductors

Asymptotic behavior of distribution functions of local quantities in disordered conductors is studied in the weak disorder limit by means of an optimal fluctuation method. It is argued that this method is more appropriate for the study of seldom occurring events than the approaches based on nonlinear $\sigma$-models because it is capable of correctly handling fluctuations of the random potential with large amplitude as well as the short-scale structure of the corresponding solutions of the Schr\"{o}dinger equation. For two- and three-dimensional conductors new asymptotics of the distribution functions are obtained which in some cases differ significantly from previously established results.Comment: 17 pages, REVTeX 3.0 and 1 Postscript figur

Chiral phase transition in lattice QCD as a metal-insulator transition

We investigate the lattice QCD Dirac operator with staggered fermions at temperatures around the chiral phase transition. We present evidence of a metal-insulator transition in the low lying modes of the Dirac operator around the same temperature as the chiral phase transition. This strongly suggests the phenomenon of Anderson localization drives the QCD vacuum to the chirally symmetric phase in a way similar to a metal-insulator transition in a disordered conductor. We also discuss how Anderson localization affects the usual phenomenological treatment of phase transitions a la Ginzburg-Landau.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, references added, typos corrected, journal versio