254 research outputs found
Many-body excitations in tunneling current spectra of a few-electron quantum dot
Inherent asymmetry in the tunneling barriers of few-electron quantum dots
induces intrinsically different tunneling currents for forward and reverse
source-drain biases in the non-linear transport regime. Here we show that in
addition to spin selection rules, overlap matrix elements between many-body
states are crucial for the correct description of tunneling transmission
through quantum dots at large magnetic fields. Signatures of excited
(N-1)-electron states in the transport process through the N-electron system
are clearly identified in the measured transconductances. Our analysis clearly
confirms the validity of single-electron quantum transport theory in quantum
dots.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
Signatures of electron correlations in the transport properties of quantum dots
The transition matrix elements between the correlated and
electron states of a quantum dot are calculated by numerical diagonalization.
They are the central ingredient for the linear and non--linear transport
properties which we compute using a rate equation. The experimentally observed
variations in the heights of the linear conductance peaks can be explained. The
knowledge of the matrix elements as well as the stationary populations of the
states allows to assign the features observed in the non--linear transport
spectroscopy to certain transition and contains valuable information about the
correlated electron states.Comment: 4 pages (revtex,27kB) + 3 figures in one file ziped and uuencoded
(postscript,33kB), to appear in Phys.Rev.B as Rapid Communicatio
Non-equilibrium transport through a vertical quantum dot in the absence of spin-flip energy relaxation
We investigate non-equilibrium transport in the absence of spin-flip energy
relaxation in a few-electron quantum dot artificial atom. Novel non-equilibrium
tunneling processes involving high-spin states which cannot be excited from the
ground state because of spin-blockade, and other processes involving more than
two charge states are observed. These processes cannot be explained by orthodox
Coulomb blockade theory. The absence of effective spin relaxation induces
considerable fluctuation of the spin, charge, and total energy of the quantum
dot. Although these features are revealed clearly by pulse excitation
measurements, they are also observed in conventional dc current characteristics
of quantum dots.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.Let
Energetics of Quantum Antidot States in Quantum Hall Regime
We report experiments on the energy structure of antidot-bound states. By
measuring resonant tunneling line widths as function of temperature, we
determine the coupling to the remote global gate voltage and find that the
effects of interelectron interaction dominate. Within a simple model, we also
determine the energy spacing of the antidot bound states, self consistent edge
electric field, and edge excitation drift velocity.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 5 Postscript figure
Conductance of a Mott Quantum Wire
We consider transport through a one-dimensional conductor subject to an
external periodic potential and connected to non-interacting leads (a "Mott
quantum wire"). For the case of a strong periodic potential, the conductance is
shown to jump from zero, for the chemical potential lying within the
Mott-Hubbard gap, to the non-interacting value of 2e^2/h, as soon as the
chemical potential crosses the gap edge. This behavior is strikingly different
from that of an optical conductivity, which varies continuously with the
carrier concentration. For the case of a weak potential, the perturbative
correction to the conductance due to Umklapp scattering is absent away from
half-filling.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 1 ps figure included; published versio
Electron Cotunneling in a Semiconductor Quantum Dot
We report transport measurements on a semiconductor quantum dot with a small
number of confined electrons. In the Coulomb blockade regime, conduction is
dominated by cotunneling processes. These can be either elastic or inelastic,
depending on whether they leave the dot in its ground state or drive it into an
excited state, respectively. We are able to discriminate between these two
contributions and show that inelastic events can occur only if the applied bias
exceeds the lowest excitation energy. Implications to energy-level spectroscopy
are discussed.Comment: To be published in Phys. Rev. Let
Transient current spectroscopy of a quantum dot in the Coulomb blockade regime
Transient current spectroscopy is proposed and demonstrated in order to
investigate the energy relaxation inside a quantum dot in the Coulomb blockade
regime. We employ a fast pulse signal to excite an AlGaAs/GaAs quantum dot to
an excited state, and analyze the non-equilibrium transient current as a
function of the pulse length. The amplitude and time-constant of the transient
current are sensitive to the ground and excited spin states. We find that the
spin relaxation time is longer than, at least, a few microsecond.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Single electron-phonon interaction in a suspended quantum dot phonon cavity
An electron-phonon cavity consisting of a quantum dot embedded in a
free-standing GaAs/AlGaAs membrane is characterized in Coulomb blockade
measurements at low temperatures. We find a complete suppression of single
electron tunneling around zero bias leading to the formation of an energy gap
in the transport spectrum. The observed effect is induced by the excitation of
a localized phonon mode confined in the cavity. This phonon blockade of
transport is lifted at magnetic fields where higher electronic states with
nonzero angular momentum are brought into resonance with the phonon energy.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Coherent photon assisted cotunneling in a Coulomb blockade device
We study cotunneling in a double junction Coulomb blockade device under the
influence of time dependent potentials. It is shown that the ac-bias leads to
photon assisted cotunneling which in some cases may dominate the transport. We
derive a general non-perturbative expression for the tunneling current in the
presence of oscillating potentials and give a perturbative expression for the
photon assisted cotunneling current.Comment: Replaced with a longer paper which includes a non-perturbative
calculation. 13 pages with 1 figure. To be published in Physical Review
Coherent Single Charge Transport in Molecular-Scale Silicon Nanowire Transistors
We report low-temperature electrical transport studies of molecule-scale
silicon nanowires. Individual nanowires exhibit well-defined Coulomb blockade
oscillations characteristic of charge addition to a single nanostructure with
length scales up to at least 400 nm. Further studies demonstrate coherent
charge transport through discrete single particle quantum levels extending the
whole device, and show that the ground state spin configuration follows the
Lieb-Mattis theorem. In addition, depletion of the nanowires suggests that
phase coherent single-dot characteristics are accessible in a regime where
correlations are strong.Comment: 4 pages and 4 figure
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