Electronic States and Transport Phenomena in Quantum Dot Systems

Electronic states and transport phenomena in semiconductor quantum dots are studied theoretically. Taking account of the electron-electron Coulomb interaction by the exact diagonalization method, the ground state and low-lying excited states are calculated as functions of magnetic field. Using the obtained many-body states, we discuss the temperature dependence of the conductance peaks in the Coulomb oscillation. In the Coulomb blockade region, elastic and inelastic cotunneling currents are evaluated under finite bias voltages. The cotunneling conductance is markedly enhanced by the Kondo effect. In coupled quantum dots, molecular orbitals and electronic correlation influence the transport properties.Comment: Review paper of our work, to appear in Proc. Int. Symp. on Formation, Physics and Device Application of Quantum Dot Structures (QDS 2000, Sapporo, Japan), Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. [11 pages, 6 figures

Lasing and antibunching of optical phonons in semiconductor double quantum dots

We theoretically propose optical phonon lasing in a double quantum dot (DQD) fabricated on a semiconductor substrate. No additional cavity or resonator is required. An electron in the DQD is found to be coupled to only two longitudinal optical phonon modes that act as a natural cavity. When the energy level spacing in the DQD is tuned to the phonon energy, the electron transfer is accompanied by the emission of the phonon modes. The resulting non-equilibrium motion of electrons and phonons is analyzed by the rate equation approach based on the Born-Markov-Secular approximation. We show that the lasing occurs for pumping the DQD via electron tunneling at rate much larger than the phonon decay rate, whereas a phonon antibunching is observed in the opposite regime of slow tunneling. Both effects disappear by an effective thermalization induced by the Franck-Condon effect in a DQD fabricated in a suspended carbon nanotube with strong electron-phonon coupling.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figure

Critical current oscillation by magnetic field in semiconductor nanowire Josephson junction

We study theoretically the critical current in semiconductor nanowire Josephson junction with strong spin-orbit interaction. The critical current oscillates by an external magnetic field. We reveal that the oscillation of critical current depends on the orientation of magnetic field in the presence of spin-orbit interaction. We perform a numerical simulation for the nanowire by using a tight-binding model. The Andreev levels are calculated as a function of phase difference $\varphi$ between two superconductors. The DC Josephson current is evaluated from the Andreev levels in the case of short junctions. The spin-orbit interaction induces the effective magnetic field. When the external field is parallel with the effective one, the critical current oscillates accompanying the $0$-$\pi$ like transition. The period of oscillation is longer as the angle between the external and effective fields is larger

Quantum State Engineering using Single Nuclear Spin Qubit of Optically Manipulated Ytterbium Atom

A single Yb atom is loaded into a high-finesse optical cavity with a moving lattice, and its nuclear spin state is manipulated using a nuclear magnetic resonance technique. A highly reliable quantum state control with fidelity and purity greater than 0.98 and 0.96, respectively, is confirmed by the full quantum state tomography; a projective measurement with high speed (500us) and high efficiency (0.98) is accomplished using the cavity QED technique. Because a hyperfine coupling is induced only when the projective measurement is operational, the long coherence times (T_1 = 0.49 s and T_2 = 0.10 s) are maintained. Our technique can be applied for implementing a scalable one-way quantum computation with a cluster state in an optical lattice.Comment: 4 figure