408 research outputs found
Coulomb charging energy for arbitrary tunneling strength
The Coulomb energy of a small metallic island coupled to an electrode by a
tunnel junction is investigated. We employ Monte Carlo simulations to determine
the effective charging energy for arbitrary tunneling strength. For small
tunneling conductance, the data agree with analytical results based on a
perturbative treatment of electron tunneling, while for very strong tunneling
recent semiclassical results for large conductance are approached. The data
allow for an identification of the range of validity of various analytical
predictions.Comment: 4 pages REVTeX, incl 3 figures, to appear in Europhys.Let
Identification of Coulomb blockade and macroscopic quantum tunneling by noise
The effects of Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling (MQT) and Coulomb Blockade (CB)
in Josephson junctions are of considerable significance both for the
manifestations of quantum mechanics on the macroscopic scale and potential
technological applications. These two complementary effects are shown to be
clearly distinguishable from the associated noise spectra. The current noise is
determined exactly and a rather sharp crossover between flux noise in the MQT
and charge noise in the CB regions is found as the applied voltage is changed.
Related results hold for the voltage noise in current-biased junctions.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, epl.cls include
Is the dynamics of open quantum systems always linear?
We study the influence of the preparation of an open quantum system on its
reduced time evolution. In contrast to the frequently considered case of an
initial preparation where the total density matrix factorizes into a product of
a system density matrix and a bath density matrix the time evolution generally
is no longer governed by a linear map nor is this map affine. Put differently,
the evolution is truly nonlinear and cannot be cast into the form of a linear
map plus a term that is independent of the initial density matrix of the open
quantum system. As a consequence, the inhomogeneity that emerges in formally
exact generalized master equations is in fact a nonlinear term that vanishes
for a factorizing initial state. The general results are elucidated with the
example of two interacting spins prepared at thermal equilibrium with one spin
subjected to an external field. The second spin represents the environment. The
field allows the preparation of mixed density matrices of the first spin that
can be represented as a convex combination of two limiting pure states, i.e.
the preparable reduced density matrices make up a convex set. Moreover, the map
from these reduced density matrices onto the corresponding density matrices of
the total system is affine only for vanishing coupling between the spins. In
general, the set of the accessible total density matrices is nonconvex.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, minor changes to improve readability, discussion
on Mori's linear regime and references adde
Quantum confinement corrections to the capacitance of gated one-dimensional nanostructures
With the help of a multi-configurational Green's function approach we
simulate single-electron Coulomb charging effects in gated ultimately scaled
nanostructures which are beyond the scope of a selfconsistent mean-field
description. From the simulated Coulomb-blockade characteristics we derive
effective system capacitances and demonstrate how quantum confinement effects
give rise to corrections. Such deviations are crucial for the interpretation of
experimentally determined capacitances and the extraction of
application-relevant system parameters
Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata using Buried Dopants
The use of buried dopants to construct quantum-dot cellular automata is
investigated as an alternative to conventional electronic devices for
information transport and elementary computation. This provides a limit in
terms of miniaturisation for this type of system as each potential well is
formed by a single dopant atom. As an example, phosphorous donors in silicon
are found to have good energy level separation with incoherent switching times
of the order of microseconds. However, we also illustrate the possibility of
ultra-fast quantum coherent switching via adiabatic evolution. The switching
speeds are numerically calculated and found to be 10's of picoseconds or less
for a single cell. The effect of decoherence is also simulated in the form of a
dephasing process and limits are estimated for operation with finite dephasing.
The advantages and limitations of this scheme over the more conventional
quantum-dot based scheme are discussed. The use of a buried donor cellular
automata system is also discussed as an architecture for testing several
aspects of buried donor based quantum computing schemes.Comment: Minor changes in response to referees comments. Improved section on
scaling and added plot of incoherent switching time
Coulomb Charging Effects for Finite Channel Number
We consider quantum fluctuations of the charge on a small metallic grain
caused by virtual electron tunneling to a nearby electrode. The average
electron number and the effective charging energy are determined by means of
perturbation theory in the tunneling Hamiltonian. In particular we discuss the
dependence of charging effects on the number N of tunneling channels. Earlier
results for N>>1 are found to be approached rather rapidly with increasing N.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
A many-fermion generalization of the Caldeira-Leggett model
We analyze a model system of fermions in a harmonic oscillator potential
under the influence of a dissipative environment: The fermions are subject to a
fluctuating force deriving from a bath of harmonic oscillators. This represents
an extension of the well-known Caldeira-Leggett model to the case of many
fermions. Using the method of bosonization, we calculate one- and two-particle
Green's functions of the fermions. We discuss the relaxation of a single extra
particle added above the Fermi sea, considering also dephasing of a particle
added in a coherent superposition of states. The consequences of the separation
of center-of-mass and relative motion, the Pauli principle, and the
bath-induced effective interaction are discussed. Finally, we extend our
analysis to a more generic coupling between system and bath, that results in
complete thermalization of the system.Comment: v3: fixed pdf problem; v2: added exact formula (Eq. 42) for Green's
function and discussion of equilibrium density matrix (new Fig. 2); 10
figures, 21 pages, see quant-ph/0305098 for brief version of some of these
result
Radio-frequency operation of a double-island single-electron transistor
We present results on a double-island single-electron transistor (DISET)
operated at radio-frequency (rf) for fast and highly sensitive detection of
charge motion in the solid state. Using an intuitive definition for the charge
sensitivity, we compare a DISET to a conventional single-electron transistor
(SET). We find that a DISET can be more sensitive than a SET for identical,
minimum device resistances in the Coulomb blockade regime. This is of
particular importance for rf operation where ideal impedance matching to 50 Ohm
transmission lines is only possible for a limited range of device resistances.
We report a charge sensitivity of 5.6E-6 e/sqrt(Hz) for a rf-DISET, together
with a demonstration of single-shot detection of small (<=0.1e) charge signals
on microsecond timescales.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
Effect of the Tunneling Conductance on the Coulomb Staircase
Quantum fluctuations of the charge in the single electron box are
investigated. The rounding of the Coulomb staircase caused by virtual electron
tunneling is determined by perturbation theory up to third order in the
tunneling conductance and compared with precise Monte Carlo data computed with
a new algorithm. The remarkable agreement for large conductance indicates that
presently available experimental data on Coulomb charging effects in metallic
nanostructures can be well explained by finite order perturbative results.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Modelling background charge rearrangements near single-electron transistors as a Poisson process
Background charge rearrangements in metallic single-electron transistors are
modelled in two-level tunnelling systems as a Poisson process with a scale
parameter as only variable. The model explains the recent observation of
asymmetric Coulomb blockade peak spacing distributions in metallic
single-electron transistors. From the scale parameter we estimate the average
size of the tunnelling systems, their density of states, and the height of
their energy barrier. We conclude that the observed background charge
rearrangements predominantly take place in the substrate of the single-electron
transistor.Comment: 7 pages, 2 eps figures, used epl.cls macro include
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